


Marginalia: of Chickens, Lube and Feather Boas

by carmenta



Series: Young, Hot and Royal [4]
Category: Royalty RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-07
Updated: 2010-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-09 23:36:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 51,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carmenta/pseuds/carmenta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prince Harry deals with chickens and pregnancies, Andrea Casiraghi counsels princes through their sexual identity crisis, Princess Victoria calls the troops and Princess Beatrice wishes her cousins were at least remotely sensible. Bits and bylines from YHR.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marginalia: of Chickens, Lube and Feather Boas

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is real person slash. I want to stress that this is a work of fiction and that all portrayals of real persons are completely fictional interpretations with no relation to reality. I claim no insight into their lives or characters. All future events portrayed in the story are, of course, purely fictional; past events on public record have been used where fitting the story and have been fictionalized accordingly. I intend no harm or insult with this story; no profit is being made.
> 
> To sum it up: this is amateur fiction, not clairvoyance. I'm making this up.
> 
> All real persons obviously belong to themselves, the original characters belong to autumn_belias and me, and no fowl have been harmed in the writing of this fic.

As royal weddings went, this one had been cancelled before it could be scheduled at all. The tabloids had been hopeful for the first few weeks after the break-up had become official, but now, two months later, they had given up on the story. There were too many other things to focus on, and once the novelty had worn off nobody really cared anymore about the former love life of a younger prince of the royal house of Sweden, not when there was the engagement of the Crown Princess to speculate about. They watched and waited, and that was it.

Andrea Albert Pierre Casiraghi, second in line to the throne of Monaco, kept a careful eye on their guests that Thursday evening of the Formula One weekend. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden was a regular visitor for the event and it was tradition by now that he'd be invited for the race, no matter whether anything or anyone Swedish was involved. That Prince Carl Philip came along for the trip was more or less tradition too, and Andrea had come to look forward to his company. It was always good to have someone his own age up in the royal box for the race, even if Carl insisted on actually _watching_ the cars go by. Andrea failed to see the appeal, but as long as the commentary was entertaining he was willing to put up with it and even feign some interest himself.

This year, however, he couldn't help wondering. Carl was being perfectly polite and friendly, but there was something definitely off about him. During the formal lunch that sort of distraction might have been explained somehow, but when even the first training laps down on the track failed to get his interest, it was hard to ignore. Last year, Andrea had had to stand outside with him, holding an umbrella over the two of them so his royal guest - who hadn't even noticed the rain, which said a lot about Swedish weather - wasn't going to get his royal ass soaking wet. This year, Carl went up to his room to have a nap while a few thousand horsepower made an ungodly racket outside.

Anyone could have an off day, of course, so Andrea didn't think too much about it until the evening. His uncle was out with some Formula One people, his mother was taking care of the King of Sweden, and he found himself in charge of keeping Carl company for dinner.

It turned out to be an excruciatingly boring meal. Andrea did his best to keep the conversation going, but with Carl pretty much on autopilot there wasn't a lot he could do about it. He was just glad he had picked one of the smaller restaurants where service was quick even with a full house, and where he didn't have to worry about media attention in case he had to resort to strangling Carl. Under the circumstances, Andrea was convinced that no jury would convict him.

"And so we thought that Corfu might be a nice place, for a change, after all it's boring to always stick to the same area of the Mediterranean," he said, down to family holiday plans in his desperate bid to keep two sides of the conversation going.

Carl was making all the appropriate noises of polite make-belief interest, but Andrea would have bet that it went in one ear and out the other.

"After all," he continued, "there are all those nine-headed sea monsters in Corfu, those are going to be a great way to get rid of Charlotte. We've been offered a few millions for her but you have to stick to traditions where princesses are concerned, so we've decided to sacrifice her to Zeus. A great idea, don't you think?"

With a distracted nod, Carl poked at his food, probably without any idea just what he was eating. "Wonderful," he agreed. "Very fitting."

Andrea fought the impulse to bury his face in his hands in desperation. He liked Carl, he really did, but this was getting too much.

He managed to survive dinner - barely - and stuffed his companion into the passenger seat of his car (an F430, forced on him for the racing weekend by well-meaning people who insisted he at least look as though he were interested in motoring, and he'd really expected at least a little bit of enthusiasm over that from Carl of all people).

Time for a change in strategy. Carl was going to be here until the beginning of next week and if this went on then he was going to find himself killed and his body vanished in the sea. There were some advantages to having pirate ancestors; at the very least, you grew up with stories of gruesome things your forefathers had done to their enemies and, presumably, to Swedish princes who'd bored them out of their minds.

"Fancy taking the scenic route?" he asked. A drive would take them away from any listeners and curious reporters, and maybe he could get to the bottom of this and find someone who wouldn't drive him insane during the coming days.

A distracted, "Sure," wasn't quite the enthusiastic agreement he'd been looking for, but by now he was willing to take whatever he got.

Fifteen minutes later they were out of the stop-and-go city traffic and well on the way north into the French hills above Monaco, a comfortable silence settled between them that was more than a little surprising after the strained evening. Turning off the main route onto a gently winding road into one of the valleys, Andrea kept his eyes straight ahead, waited, and hoped they'd get somewhere before they ended up in Switzerland.

It took ten minutes and a few hairpin turns before he heard a sigh coming from Carl. "I assume there's a reason why we're up here?"

Andrea slowed down a little. "Yes, I'm going to dump you and see how long it takes you to walk back, I've always wanted to find that out."

A moment's silence was followed by an amused little laugh. "Three, four hours? And why would you leave me here?"

Andrea breathed a deep sigh of relief. "Oh thank God you are listening. Do you even realize that during dinner you agreed sacrificing my sister to ancient Greek gods and monsters would be a great idea?"

"That is... when did you say that? And of course not!"

"I said it right in the middle of the main course, and you agreed. Very pleasantly, too." Andrea negotiated his way around another hairpin and decided they'd have to turn around soon before this got too mountainous for a night drive. "If it hadn't been me on the receiving end, I'd have to congratulate you on your royal autopilot conversation."

Carl laughed a little at that. "Sorry," he said. "The last weeks have been a lot busier than usual, it's automatic. Consider yourself lucky I didn't switch into the 'yes, I am very pleased with my sister's engagement' mode. Though that's still better than the 'why Emma and I have separated' routine."

"I heard about that." Andrea briefly glanced at the other man, then focused on the road again. "It can't have been much fun." Relationship trouble were hard enough to deal with already when the press wasn't thrown into the mix, and nobody wanted that added complication. Tatiana and he had been lucky so far that nobody had caught on that they were having a bit of a break right now; it helped their chances to grow closer again.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Carl shrug. "Em is a pro when it comes to handling the media because of her job. And it wasn't... entirely unexpected, so we had time to prepare and time it so people would be more interested in Vicky than in us. Mostly that worked, but well, royal autopilot, like you say."

"I'm not going to ask you about your sister in that case," Andrea promised. "You know, if you'd rather hide for the weekend I don't think anyone's going to notice. You aren't on the official guest list as far as I'm aware."

"No, they probably forgot me again," Carl said with a hint of amusement in his voice. "Thanks for the offer, but I'm not going to miss the race, that's just too much fun."

"You went for a _nap_ rather than look at noisy cars today. I was starting to think they'd sent a doppelgänger instead of you." The car rumbled across a cattle grid, a sure sign that they were getting too far into the rural areas of France and away from civilisation to continue. The last thing Andrea was interested in was running into an irritated cow in the middle of the night.

Carl shifted in his seat. "That was just... a long week, with far too long days. And too many people."

Andrea could sympathize with that; schedules sometimes ran away with you, and when you'd had busy weeks leading up to it, a few really crowded days were enough to finish you off. He'd gone through the same with his last project - when that was finally finished and everything in the dry, he'd spent a week trying to move as little as possible. Tatiana had been the same; she was still in Rio to get her breath back. Their current time-out was more than necessary if they wanted to keep their relationship on track; any more clinging together due to circumstances and the fights would have turned serious.

He finally spotted a wider bit of road and carefully began to turn the car around - not fun with something of this size and turning circle, and one of the reasons why he usually didn't bother with overpriced and overstyled monsters like the one they'd forced on him for now. But this was Monaco, the Formula One weekend no less, and he really couldn't afford being seen in anything sensible.

"Harder to the right," Carl told him, looking out the side window, "you've still got plenty of room here."

Andrea followed the instruction, but still couldn't quite get the turn. "I can't wait to put this thing back into the garage on Monday. Is there any chance you want to do a bit of driving?"

It would have been impossible to miss the spark of interest in Carl's voice. "Sure, why not?"

They got out and swapped seats, with Carl magnanimously refraining from mentioning that Andrea left the rest of the tricky turning to him. A few moments full of fence posts in far too close proximity later, they were on the way back.

Carl perked up considerably once he was in the driver's seat, and Andrea filed that bit of knowledge away for future reference in case he found himself faced with a zombie prince again. Put him into a car and he'll be happy, he thought. Give him something with plenty of horsepower and a roaring engine, and you're guaranteed to get a smile.

Use your influence as the nephew of the Prince of Monaco and let him sneak a few laps around the grand prix race track in a supercar while the roads are blocked for normal traffic, and he may just end up in your bed a little later, high on adrenaline and a literal speed rush, while you are in no mind to protest because you can use that sort of reassurance after such break-neck driving.

This, Andrea thought absently as they tumbled down onto the mattress together, Carl's mouth insistent on his own, one hand tangled in his hair and the other finding its way past the waistband of his pants, this was unexpected.

He hadn't really had occasion to wonder whether Carl had done this before; from what he could tell the answer was probably no, but if Carl wasn't used to finding himself in bed with another man, he didn't let it curb his enthusiasm. Andrea let him do as he liked, was helpful when it came to getting rid of their clothes, and murmured pleased encouragements while he let him explore.

Andrea certainly couldn't accuse Carl of being a slow learner, even when a bit of hesitation crept in as they crossed into territory that so far must have been theoretical. But lube didn't take much explaining, neither did condoms, and it all came together quite nicely once they figured out a rhythm.

They lay together afterwards, warm against the cool breeze from the open window, and Andrea let himself enjoy the moment as he kept his head on Carl's chest, listening to his calming breaths. He'd always enjoyed the quiet moments after, sometimes even more than the sex itself, and he wasn't quite willing to let go of it yet. Fortunately, Carl didn't seem about to start untangling himself either.

"That was..." Carl trailed off, gesturing vaguely.

"New?" Andrea suggested, placing a light kiss against his collarbone before looking up to meet his eyes and see the confirmation there. "Thought so."

The matter-of-fact statement earned him a little chuckle. "You're less surprised than I am."

"Well, you must have had some idea, after all you made the first move." Andrea shifted a little and Carl moved with him so they could look at each other more easily.

"An idea perhaps, but..." Carl shook his head, a frown on his face, and Andrea affectionately patted his shoulder. "You know, until now I didn't think Em was right about it."

"She figured you out?"

Carl shrugged. "She did. And it's not... we've been friends a lot more than lovers in the end, so maybe it's not that surprising. I miss that, the friends part. And really, it's been so much simpler that way."

Andrea had to laugh a little, and rose up to kiss him again. Just lightly, neither of them was in any shape for a repeat performance just yet, but it pleased him to have Carl's willing response.

"It's better if you two worked it out," he said. "A bit of sage advice? Not everything has to be conventional. Look at Tatiana and me, we've found an arrangement that suits us both. You'll just have to find that for yourself, too."

"So this isn't causing trouble for you?" Carl asked earnestly. "I should have thought..."

Andrea gave him an amused look. "She knows I might be seeing someone else while she's gone. But I expect she'll want details later." The expression on Carl's face turned from puzzled to blushing. "Don't worry, I have only the best to report."

That earned him a smile that bespoke a lighter mood, just as he'd intended. This wasn't going to turn into anything, they both knew that. They didn't have any sort of foundation to build on even if Andrea didn't know Tatiana would be back. This was just for the present - a week perhaps, until they would go separate ways again. But nothing said that they couldn't enjoy it while it lasted.

***

"If I ever hear a complaint about you not using enough lube," Andrea said, giving him a half-serious glare, "you'll be in trouble. And don't think I won't find out, we Grimaldis have our ways."

Carl shot him an amused look. "Duly noted," he smirked. "What's next on the class schedule, Mister Miyagi? How to catch a fly with a pair of chopsticks?"

Their eyes met, and the next moment they both burst out laughing.

"There'll be a test tomorrow, grasshopper," Andrea managed once he got his breath back. Carl still had his face buried against Andrea's shoulder, shaking with mirth, and it was almost enough to set Andrea off again too. "We'll have to see if you've been paying attention."

Carl raised his head, a mischievous grin on his face. "Do I get a graduation present if I pass?"

"Maybe, if you're," Carl did something highly interesting with his hand, and Andrea briefly lost track of what he'd been about to say, "if you're really good."

"In that case I'd better make sure I practise," Carl said, and his renewed attention left Andrea moaning in appreciation. Whoever Carl ended up with wouldn't have any reason to complain about a lack of dedication, that much was for sure. Under different circumstances Andrea might perhaps have been tempted to keep him - they suited each other pretty well in bed, and there was the added thrill of being the one to take Carl through this learning phase and steer him in any desired direction.

But Andrea already had someone who didn't share just his bed but also his interests and dedications, and whom he loved far too much to let go for a Swedish prince he might be in lust with for now, but who in turn was far better suited to the role of friend than lover. He and Carl both got plenty out of this, but a relationship wasn't going to be among that, something they'd both agreed on. This was about mutual pleasure and enjoyment, and in Carl's case also about figuring out a few things, and that was enough in its own right.

He nibbled and licked his way up Carl's throat, tasting the salt from their earlier trip out to the sea (Scandinavian ideas of acceptable water temperatures for a swim being vastly different from his own). There was a hint of sunburn on Carl's nose and Andrea kissed it better before insistent hands in his hair dragged him down and brought their mouths together.

One of Carl's thighs found its way between his own; a gentle push and Andrea let himself be rolled over onto his back, Carl a comfortable weight against him. Kissing was good, really good, and he happily settled into it and simply enjoyed himself. There was an art to it, a bit like dancing when you just needed someone who suited your own rhythm to take it from good to _fun_ and a pleasure all in itself. Almost as good as Carl's mouth on his cock a little later, and god didn't he turn out to be a natural at that.

"Enough?" Carl asked, his voice husky and full of laughter as he reached down between them, his hand slippery with lube.

"Perfect," Andrea gasped, and then was far too busy to offer any further critique.

***

"I'll miss this," Carl said, his hand coming to a halt comfortably low on Andrea's hip as he moved closer. If there was one thing Andrea had learned about him these past few days, it was that he was a highly tactile person; finding himself alone after such a long relationship had to be hard to adjust to. So Andrea let him have the closeness, and privately wondered when he'd turned into a counsellor for sexually identity challenged princes. It wasn't a hardship in any way, but it also wasn't quite what he'd imagined as his calling in life.

(At least Tatiana was mainly amused by it all; he'd called her on Friday morning already to talk to her about this turn of events. They might be taking a breather, but that didn't mean she didn't have the right to know what was going on in his bed, even if they'd agreed about this in advance already.

"I slept with Prince Carl Philip," he'd told her.

There was a moment of silence at the other end of the line, then, "who?"

"Carl Philip," he'd repeated. "From Sweden."

"They've got a prince? I thought they only had girls."

He wondered whether he should point out how the issue of gay sex didn't seem to concern her at all in comparison, then let it drop, but not after he'd been made to promise a detailed account of all that happened. Women, he thought, could sometimes be a bit odd.)

Aimlessly threading his fingers through Carl's hair, Andrea wondered where they'd go from here. Back to New York and to Stockholm for the immediate future, and friends beyond that, he hoped. Carl was an easy person to be fond of, and since they were both in the same age group of young royals, they were bound to run into each other on occasion.

"Hey Andrea." Carl turned his head to meet his eyes, and Andrea's hand slipped from his hair down to his cheek. "Did I ever say thank you?"

"What for? Having a good time?" Andrea shifted to his side so they could look at each other more easily. "I've been enjoying myself too, in case you haven't noticed."

"That's... good to know? But really, thanks." Carl leaned in and kissed him on the lips, just lightly, without intentions beyond the gesture. "And not for the sex."

Considering that they'd both been having plenty of fun with each other, gratitude would have put a rather strange spin on that, but Andrea refrained from pointing that out. "Just take care of yourself and don't get stupid," he said instead. "And I expect an invitation to your wedding, just so we're clear on that."

Eyebrows raised, Carl looked at him with a hint of amusement in his eyes. "That may take some time. I'll have to find someone to marry, for one thing, and then talk him into it."

Andrea chuckled. "Don't take no for an answer, it's as easy as that. Or so my mother claims, and with three marriages under her belt, she ought to know. I think she's trying to convince me of the idea, too, but there's still plenty of time." A yawn crept up on him and he barely managed to suppress it.

Carl kissed him once more, then sat up, the sheet pooling in his lap. An overall appealing sight, and Andrea spared a moment's thought to the idea of continuing this after all before dismissing it.

"I'd better go," Carl said quietly. "It's getting late."

"Just stay if you want to," Andrea invited him. It was the last night they'd both be in Monaco, they might as well enjoy it. "Security has seen you come in the front door and not go out again, so nobody's going to check whether you're actually in your bed. We can set the alarm so you can sneak back to your room early in the morning."

"You're sure?" Temptation and manners at war, there, and Andrea wasn't going to let Carl go through that little debate with himself. As far as he was concerned, temptation was welcome to win out when the manners concerned in their particular situation were pointless anyway.

"I'm not in the habit of making offers I don't want taken up." Andrea set the alarm, then moved over a little to make space. He was warm and comfortable, and he didn't fancy going through the whole rigamarole of sending Carl back to his room right now. It wasn't as if anyone would catch them at it, and even if they did, finding them literally sleeping with each other would be a lot less difficult to deal with than the more figurative version. "You're not going to steal the pillows, are you?"

"Blankets sometimes, apparently, but I haven't had any complaints about pillows." Carl studied him for a little while, then lay down again with a contented little sigh. Andrea waited until he'd settled, then slid an arm around his waist and felt Carl shift, all knees and elbows for a moment until they negotiated a position they both were comfortable in.

It would be interesting to see how this all turned out, Andrea thought as Carl went still against him, his breathing deepening as he drifted off to sleep. Very interesting indeed.

***

The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony was an annual exercise in proper princess behaviour. Pick an appropriate dress. Pick a tiara that went with said dress but didn't upstage either your big sister or, even worse, your mother. Find shoes to go with said dress and tiara. Find a way to wear the thrice-damned light blue sash of the Order of the Seraphim that never matches any dress but mustn't be omitted. Find ways to affix all insignia to said dress and sash without risking accidents with the pins, or, even worse, risking unbecoming stretches or gathers in the dress. Find a hairstyle to go with the entire ensemble.

Then find the inner peace and patience required to sit through a day of ceremony with more speeches and eulogies anyone can possibly find pleasurable. Do this while keeping a pleasant smile on your face, your back straight, your hands in your lap and your knees together.

All the while, keep an eye on your brother so he doesn't look so obviously bored that the Nobel Physics Prize winner you later escort to dinner apologizes to you for boring him.

By the time they all sat down on the gilded chairs on the podium, Madeleine could tell that this year's ceremony was going to be a difficult one as far as keeping Carl in line was concerned. He'd escorted her and Victoria along the halls with a serene smile on his face that was positively unnerving, and had a faraway look in his eyes even before the opening speech was done.

Madeleine attempted a quick glare in his direction - it had been enough to keep him attentive in the 2007 ceremony - and followed it up with a hissed "pay attention!" that had served in 2005.

It got him through the first speech, but she could see his attention was wandering again soon after that. So the first time they rose to applaud the committee, she seized the opportunity to step on his toes. There was a reason why she always picked stiletto heels for this day despite the hassle of walking across the cobblestones outside. A quiet yelp from her brother was confirmation that her message had gotten across, and she daintily arranged herself on her chair again with a profound sense of satisfaction.

Five minutes later, Carl started to get the faraway look again.

Just what was this about? Surely he wasn't mentally revising the latest lectures from his university classes, those things couldn't possibly be that riveting. She knew the look he got when he thought about driving and mentally went through a track - a lot more focused and with narrowed eyes, so that wasn't it. In fact, this was positively dreamy.

Was there someone he was dreaming about? It couldn't be Emma, she'd have known about that. And the only other person she could suspect was that Grimaldi boy, and she still wasn't sure whether Charlotte and Tatiana had been telling the truth when they'd mentioned it during their last lunch date a few months ago. Madeleine had been willing to entertain the notion that her brother wasn't entirely straight - though he really should have a better fashion sense in that case - ever since Emma had said a few things about the break-up that had made her think. But Andrea Casiraghi had a girlfriend, and if there was one thing Madeleine was sure about, then that her brother wouldn't get mixed up in an existing relationship. Not when he'd been so angry and furiously supportive when she'd been in those shoes. Still, Tatiana was the girlfriend in question and she'd seemed mostly amused by it all.

But that pleased expression on his face... it almost had to be a lover, and just why hadn't he told her about it? Or Vicky, at least? They were his sisters, they were supposed to know about this sort of thing, and he wasn't supposed to make her realize it during a ceremony that was bound to go on for another two hours before she could ask him about it.

There was a round of applause after the next speech, and she seized the opportunity to deliver a threat, her method of choice from 2006. "If you don't turn your eyes to the podium right this minute I will have someone tell the press you broke up with Emma because you can only have sex with your car," she promised under her breath.

It didn't have the desired effect; now he clearly was thinking about cars and knew that she knew it, if the quick grin he flashed her was any indication. Still, that dreamy look was gone for a while and Madeleine began to relax in the faint hope that he'd gotten the message. Until he started studying the ceiling.

When the next occasion to stand up came around, she took a half step to the left and pinched his thigh, hard, the same way she'd done in 2008 and that had made him pay attention for over an hour afterwards, with a faintly pained look. This time it got him to straighten up for a few minutes, but then he drifted off again, now with the dreamy look and a slow smile that was far too telling. Madeleine began to despair.

It was all nice and good to know that your brother was getting laid - and it explained why he'd been considerably more mellow and relaxed these last few weeks - but the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony really wasn't the place for that.

Did Vicky know? She and Carl had their own habits when it came to talking to each other, and Madeleine couldn't rule it out. But one of them would have said something to her if it was serious. No, she decided, Vicky probably wasn't aware of this. They'd have to work in concert to get that particular secret out of Carl.

It took until halfway through the ceremony for the dreamy look to vanish, and Madeleine breathed an inward sigh of relief when it finally did. To her surprise it was replaced by something she might almost have called calculating; he was up to something, she could tell that much. But since that made him look as though he was concentrating on what was going on in front of him, she let it pass.

He managed to look alert for the rest of the ceremony, something that warranted a reward, so Madeleine gave him an affectionate pat on the afore-pinched thigh as they made their way out of the great hall. It earned her a surprised look, which she answered with a quick smile.

"You've been behaving yourself," she said, letting a bit of praise slip into her voice. Maybe a little encouragement would help to lay the foundation for next year's ceremony and make her work easier.

She sat opposite from him during the festive dinner and only had to kick his ankle a few times to keep him in line - long legs truly came in handy for so many occasions. The dinner always was an easier affair, fortunately; there were people to talk to, and the laureates the royal family traditionally accompanied were interesting discussion partners who, she suspected, were so sick of talking about their prize-winning topic by the time the ceremony came around that the dinner talk she led with the medicine laureate didn't go any closer to the topic than a quiet request for an aspirin.

Once the dinner was done with, the evening wrapped up and Madeleine was back in her apartment at the palace, fighting with the tiara that had gotten tangled in her hair, her thoughts went back to Carl. Just who had he been thinking about there? She was sure she had it right and that he had been lost in thought over a lover; she _knew_ that look about him. And he'd be gone by tomorrow morning, back to his studies in Alnarp, and there wouldn't be an opportunity to corner him in private and badger him into telling.

The thought didn't let her go even when she already lay in bed. For a few minutes she tried to banish it from her mind, concentrate on pleasant thoughts of her own, but she kept circling back to her brother.

After half an hour, she gave up, turned on the light again and reached for her mobile phone. The number she wanted was easy to find; she'd been thorough in keeping up her contact list in case of random emergencies, or in case she ever wanted to solve the mystery of who her brother might be having an affair with these days. She was his sister, she was supposed to know in case he was getting himself into something that wasn't good for him.

The call was answered after a few rings; the benefits of different time zones that let her do this right now without being impolite and inconsiderate.

"Yes?"

Madeleine launched herself into her best princess voice. "Andrea? This is Madeleine. Bernadotte," she added for his benefit, in case he couldn't place her, although of course he should. But better save them both the embarrassment in case he turned out to be typically male about remembering voices and the attached names.

Andrea, fortunately didn't disappoint, or at least was good at faking that he knew who he was talking to. "Madeleine? This is a surprise. What earns me this pleasure?"

Ah, she'd forgotten that this was someone who knew his manners. She'd have to see whether she couldn't arrange another meeting with Charlotte, bring their brothers along maybe and see them interact.

"I have just been wondering about something, and your name came up," she said. "So I thought I might give you a call, see how you are doing these days. Your sister said you're in New York?"

A bit long distance for a relationship, but as far as Madeleine knew, Andrea was in Monaco often enough. Carl could use some more sunshine.

"I am about to come back to Europe for a while," Andrea said, and a knowing smile spread on her face at that. "In fact I was about to board the plane... would you mind terribly if I called you once I arrive?"

"Of course not. Though if you would be so kind to just answer a question..." There was no way she'd allow him on an eight-hour intercontinental flight without some facts first.

"Naturally, anything you want to know."

Madeleine smiled to herself. "Wonderful. Forgive me for being so direct, but are you seeing my brother?"

There was silence at the other end of the line.

"Romantically," she clarified, just in case.

She heard a cough that sounded suspiciously like someone choking on a drink, then Andrea said in a somewhat raspy voice, "I take it you know about his Monaco trip last year?"

So that _had_ happened.

"Charlotte and Tatiana told me," she said loftily.

Andrea sighed. "And they shouldn't have done that. Madeleine, if Carl is seeing someone, it's not me, and you probably should be asking him about this anyway. Look, I really need to go, but I will call you once I am in Heathrow for my transfer."

"Of course, don't let me keep you. Have a pleasant flight."

Putting down the phone, she turned off the light again and lay back down.

Carl and Andrea. An... interesting combination, and not only for the obvious reason. If whoever Carl was seeing now was a man... well, their father would have a fit, at the very least, and just when it had seemed like that little adventure with Sofia was over. Not that she wanted him to get into trouble over this; Carl was allowed his own eccentricities when it came to relationships after staunchly supporting his sisters through theirs. As long as he kept his sisters updated about them, of course, because there really was no excuse for failing to mention a change in sexual orientation.

Besides, if her brother really swung that way now, it was high time he developed the dress sense to go with it.

***

"Your colleagues are starting to scare me."

Looking up from buttering his sandwich, Sven gave Mike a quizzical look. "Why?"

In response, Mike showed him the little basket used to hold bread rolls and toast for breakfast. It was fairly empty already, what with the princesses' security detail leaving early this morning for a day trip with their charges to see some horses. For once it was a chance for a quiet breakfast, even though Sven appreciated the time spent with the other Säpo officers. Watching Carl Philip tended to be solitary work now that he spent little time at the palace proper, and it was good to catch up with everybody again.

The bread basket didn't look offensive. It still had some buns, a few slices of rye bread, and some toast, and while the toast probably was hard and dry by now Sven didn't think it was a reason for concern.

Mike looked at him expectantly, eyebrows raised. Sven opted for the safe choice and waited for a clue.

"I may not be an expert on Swedish food," Mike said eventually, "but I know by now that the cinnamon buns you get around here aren't usually this big."

Sven looked at the buns in question, made a vague noise of agreement, but still failed to see the issue.

"And I know by now that Britta and Astrid, at the very least, love their cinnamon buns for breakfast." The expression on Mike's face clearly said that he expected Sven to make sense of this.

Sven opted for taking a bite of his sandwich and hoped that by the time he'd swallowed, things would start looking clearer. If there was one thing he'd learned about Mike by now, it was that it was better to play along whenever he found something suspicious and latched onto solving the mystery. It was a useful trait in a security officer, but it made for the occasional weird conversation under more regular circumstances

"So they've deliberately left the big ones for us," Mike said, as if presenting a great discovery.

"That's nice of them?" Sven attempted.

Mike gave him a look that clearly said he'd expected more, but still sat down on the chair next to him, one of the offending buns in hand. "They're doing it on purpose."

Sven blinked, not sure what sort of answer he was supposed to give on the topic of cinnamon bun conspiracies. He noted, however, that Mike didn't appear to think that the buns were in any way dangerous since he was eating this one.

"Why?" he finally ventured.

"Best guess? Because they've figured out you and I are together, and they're trying to encourage it in some way. Helen did the same when she found out about two of our colleagues, she kept leaving them food and said it was because they looked cute." Mike studied the bun in his hand, then bit into it with gusto.

Perhaps there really was something about Astrid's frequent mutterings about how no entirely normal people could voluntarily join the RPD. Granted, she tended to say it whenever she saw Prince Harry get up to something, but Sven wondered whether she might not have hit on the core of the matter.

"Does it matter?" he asked. They hadn't said anything outright - that would have overstepped a line in their work ethics they didn't want to cross - but they weren't exactly hiding either.

Mike shook his head. "No, of course not, but it's unnerving. It's enough that Helen keeps smirking at me, and now your girls are doing the same. And they're handing out snacks as rewards."

"Well, they probably noticed you like those things, so they're being nice. As long as it gets you your favourite food for breakfast, why worry about it?"

Mike contemplated the rest of his roll, then nodded. Mystery solved, apparently; Sven breathed an inward sigh of relief. Sometimes, dating someone who'd been conditioned to treat everything that was even the slightest bit out of the ordinary as suspicious and a potential threat had its downsides.

"We probably should be a bit careful around the princes, though," he said, seizing the opportunity. The possibility that they might notice had been on his mind ever since meeting up with the British group, and this was as good a chance to mention it as any.

"William isn't going to figure it out." Mike's tone was one of complete and utter conviction. "You could throw me on the ground in front of him and shag me senseless and he'd not notice."

Sven blinked at him. "Is that something you want to give a try?" he asked dryly.

"Why, are you offering?" Mike grinned at him, then got up and laid his hands briefly on Sven's shoulders before fetching the coffee pot from the counter. "I'm just saying, William still doesn't know my name, and I've been one of his assigned officers for years now. Sometimes I'm not even sure he knows we exist." He poured two mugs of coffee and brought them back to the table. "He's not doing it on purpose, and he's never anything but friendly and polite to us, but he's extremely good at tuning out security. He knows we're there, in a roundabout way, but that's about it."

It was odd to imagine that sort of treatment. Sven had seen the British prince interact with his guards, and now that Mike mentioned it he had to agree that there had been a lack of awareness. William simply did what he intended to do and expected everyone to follow along. And since the guards were used to it, it worked. If Carl Philip ever did the same thing, everybody would start walking into doors that suddenly weren't being held open anymore.

Sven couldn't help thinking that any of them would find Carl Philip a rather different sort of challenge. His prince was not only acutely aware of all security around him, but also fiendishly good at escaping them. It was a good thing that there wasn't actually any danger he needed protecting from and that they did it for propriety's sake more than anything else.

"So William won't notice," he said. "But Carl Philip... he's a bit more aware of things."

Mike measured sugar into his coffee. "I know. He's been giving me a few odd looks over the past few days, as if he's trying to figure out what to do about me. You're a known quantity in all this for him already, after all he's enlisted you with the phone delivery. But with me he probably can't quite decide whether I'm aware of what's going on, or if I'm as oblivious as William."

"Should we say something?"

The question earned him a horrified look. "Like what? By the way, your Highness, we know you're sleeping with Prince William, but don't worry, we approve and wish you all the best? Somehow I don't think he'd appreciate that. No, better just keep doing what we're already doing, and let them think they're being sneaky. We're running enough interference for them as it is."

Sven nodded, then glanced at him speculatively. "So you're not reporting those details either?"

It earned him a little laugh. "Of course not. It's not like Carl Philip is doing anything dangerous to my prince, or vice versa. I keep track of where he goes, I mention that he meets with Carl Philip, but that's it. What they do during those meetings is their business."

"It's working out rather well, isn't it?"

"For them or for us?"

He took a moment to consider. "For both? I can't say about William, but Carl Philip is... more settled since they've taken up with each other. As for us, it's a lot easier to make this work when the job keeps throwing us together."

Mike gave him a little smirk and leaned over to kiss his cheek, just lightly. It was as much as they dared do here in the semi-public where someone might come in at any moment, and it made the gesture count a lot more. "It's a good thing I like you," he said. "Or this would really be hard work."

***

Sweden, Harry decided after a few days, was awesome. And not just because it got him away from all sorts of official obligations, constrictions and pressures. They didn't even have paparazzi here (possibly because they'd freeze to death if they attempted their usual tricks of hiding in the bushes for as long as it took to get good pictures) and whatever he got up to stayed essentially unreported. Aside, of course, from the risk of King Carl Gustaf telling Grandma, but Harry had a lot of practice when it came to staying unobserved.

Not that he particularly felt like doing something crazy, but it was nice that he could have done it if he'd wanted to. For now he was happy just having some fun with his cousins - he wasn't entirely certain how he was related to the Bernadottes, but it was a safe bet that there had been a connection somewhere. Once you got two royal highnesses in the same room, it was just a matter of counting back a few generations until you found a common link. Which he couldn't care less about, really, but it simplified the way he thought of all those highnesses running around. Figure them as aunts, uncles and cousins depending on age, and it was easy to grab the right attitude.

Besides, getting stuck on a ski lift with cousin Maddie was a lot better than doing so with Her Royal Highness Princess Madeleine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland.

"Great," he said as the double seat they shared gently swung to a halt.

"Just give it a few minutes." Maddie sounded unconcerned as she adjusted the blanket on her legs a little. "Even in these temperatures it would take until morning for you to freeze to death."

Rolling his eyes, he leaned forward over the safety bar to check the distance to the ground, and decided it wasn't something he wanted to try for a jump. Better wait and see whether this wasn't simply a matter of a passenger causing a moment of chaos at the loading or unloading spot that needed to be sorted out before things went on normally. The adventure of hopping off the lift to save the princess and heroically fighting his way back to civilisation through untouched Scandinavian wilderness held some appeal, but it was seriously hampered by the forest consisting of just a few scraggly trees less than a hundred steps off the well-prepared slopes. Heroics would have to wait, Harry decided with a soft sigh of regret.

"It's probably just Carl and Wills falling over their skis again at the exit," Maddie echoed his thoughts. "I've got no idea what they do on the lift ride that gets them too tangled up to get off at the end without an accident."

Harry shrugged, then scrambled for his sticks when they began to slip from his hand. "Older brothers," he said. "What can you do, they'll just be embarrassing sometimes."

It earned him a laugh from his companion. "Too true. Horrible choice in ties, bored looks in public..."

"No idea about good music," Harry contributed.

"Always steps on my dress..."

"Calls me Ginger..."

"... can't colour-coordinate worth a damn..."

"... thinks Lynx helicopters are boring..."

They looked at each other and grinned at the unexpected discovery of a soul-mate.

"It's much better being the younger one," Harry said.

Madeleine nodded decisively. "No disagreement from me."

***

There were days when Sven had the sneaking suspicion that his prince might be a little bit insane, because he wasn't sure how else to explain a twenty-hour car trip for a brief visit to your lover. Especially when that same trip could be done in half the time and twice the comfort by plane and train, as he could attest after catching up with Carl Philip that way.

They would need to have a serious talk about advance warnings one of these days, and about how post-it notes left on the fridge door had better be a bit more explicit than "back in 3 days". That Carl Philip had left a note at all was progress already compared to past times when he'd gone AWOL, but it really wasn't enough. If either of the princesses had done something like that, the country would have been in an uproar. That the security detail on Carl Philip was more or less an afterthought, designed not to let anyone wonder why the sole Bernadotte prince wasn't being guarded didn't matter; Sven took his job seriously, and this was making it unnecessarily complicated.

He'd need to address this. Once his prince was awake again.

It had been necessary to get an early start so they wouldn't arrive in Stockholm too long after midnight. A twenty hour drive, pure insanity in Sven's eyes, but Carl Philip had refused to even consider getting on a plane and having someone come to collect the car. He was driving back, which meant that Sven was coming with him because there was no telling what sort of mischief his prince could get into between Dover and Copenhagen, once he dropped out of sight of either RPD or Säpo.

English motorways apparently hadn't been too impressive and had therefore been delegated to Sven. Carl Philip had buckled in on the passenger side, murmured something about how to properly use the flappy-paddled gearbox, yawned a few times, and before they'd even been around the first corner he'd been blissfully asleep.

Not much of a surprise after a night that had been spent sleeping only in the extremely figurative sense. Sven wasn't entirely sure whether his prince was simply unaware that he and Prince William had been making a fair amount of noise, or whether he hadn't cared. What he _was_ sure of by now was that William was more than oblivious where security personnel was concerned. The day would come when he walked into one of them just because he was so good at tuning out their presence.

Half an hour into the drive, Sven had figured out why he had been put behind the wheel for this stretch of the trip. Whoever had come up with the Eurotunnel security instructions was obsessed with the idea of getting sued and had covered every eventuality, no matter how remote, in the lecture. In English and French. Plus advice on what to do on the other side of the Channel. Plus soothing music. And there were reminders every five minutes to keep the engines turned off. It was enough to make you want to cover your ears and drive forward a few centimetres just to be contrary. If you weren't lucky enough to be asleep through the whole thing, that was.

Carl Philip, Sven decided as he watched the man happily snooze through announcements, siren warnings and a group of Frenchmen excited about the Porsche, had a mean streak.

Once out of the tunnel again and on roads where you could drive on the right and proper side, he gave in to temptation and put on the headset to his mobile phone.

"Hey Mike."

"Sven! Is everything all right? I thought you'd be on the road by now."

Sven had to smile at the little hint of concern. "We are, just past Dunkerque. I just thought I'd give you a call before you're back in London."

"With Carl Philip in the car with you? You do remember that talk we had about having to be careful since your prince actually notices what goes on around him, right?"

"He's fast asleep, don't worry." Sven glanced at his passenger, who was peacefully snuggled into the safety belt.

Mike snorted. "Hardly surprising, it's not like he can have gotten any sleep during the night. They sure are determined to make the most of their time. You'll still share the driving, right?"

"He'd stage a rebellion if I didn't let him have Germany, I think. I'll just give him a few hours to catch up on sleep, then he can have the autobahn if he's awake enough by then. Are you on the way back already?"

"Yes, we had to leave a little earlier," Mike said. "Seems like Harry got mixed up in ... something, Paul wasn't quite clear on what it was beyond all the swearing. Clarence House wants to get William out for some nice casual pictures for damage control." Sven heard him sigh. "We'll be in trouble once it's the other way around. There's no way Harry can provide enough of a distraction, no matter what stunt he pulls."

"If you're sure..."

"Not really, actually, there's no limit to the sort of things he can cook up. Anyway, that's my excitement for the day. But it's good that you called, I just talked to Stuart and it looks like I can take either this weekend or the next one off."

Sven waited for a little more, but it seemed as if Mike wasn't quite ready to either make the invitation or invite himself. Silly Brits with their odd ideas of manners. "I'll be on call for both weekends, so you'll have to come visit. Normally nothing should come up unless he decides to vanish again, and these days that only means you'll have to help me find them anyway." He glanced to the right, where Carl Philip still wasn't moving. "Is there any chance there's some truth to those rumours about William getting implanted with a tracking device? Because that would really be handy."

"Sorry, that's just a rumour. But if he starts getting ideas from Carl Philip now, I'll have to see if we can't chip him somehow. So it's all right with you if I stop by next weekend?"

"Perfect, I'm looking forward to it already." And he was; they'd just had two days together, but they'd been on duty so it wasn't the same. Not that the princes had exactly done much beyond going for the occasional walk before vanishing in William's bedroom again - still, duty was duty. A weekend to themselves - barring any incidents with their charges that required more than the security detail in charge at the time - sounded great.

He talked to Mike a little longer, until his lover had to end the call and get on with his duties again. The Dutch border was already within reach by then, and another hour had them within sight of Germany.

Sven wasn't planning on waking Carl Philip just yet, but slowing down for the speed bumps at the border crossing was enough to make the prince stir. He blinked, yawned, stretched, looked out the window, and a slow grin spread on his face.

"You can stop over there," he said, the eagerness obvious in his voice. "I assume you'll want to get a break from driving."

The next hours passed in a blur, but unfortunately only outside the car. Carl Philip was an excellent driver - you didn't get a racing license if you weren't - but Sven was still highly relieved when the Danish border came into view and with it speed-restricted motorways, a lot sooner than expected but not nearly soon enough.

***

Whoever had come up with the idea of racing cars on a frozen lake needed to have their head examined.

Shivering in the chill wind despite the thickly padded jacket, scarf and gloves, Michael did his best not to have an apoplexy while his prince got driven across nine-inch thick ice on a bottomless lake.

"He's going to fall through the ice and drown and I'll have to explain why I lost the future King William in a lake in Sweden," he muttered, stuffing his hands into the coat pockets in an attempt to keep them a little warmer. He'd thought temperatures during the Kiruna trip had been low, but he was reaching new definitions of freezing right now.

At his side, Sven watched the race car - a race car, on a bloody lake - move to the start line. "Keep telling yourself that fewer people fall through the ice each year than get attacked by elks," he said in what was probably intended to be a reassuring voice but which failed utterly.

Mike shot him a dubious look. "That's not helping," he said. "Harry got attacked by an elk, remember?"

Better not let him come to Sweden in winter again, lest Carl Philip decided to introduce him to this particular kind of insanity as well. Harry might be a pain in the ass, but letting him turn himself into wintery fish food wasn't quite what he deserved.

Under normal circumstances this might have been entertaining to watch. But when the Porsche pulled away in a spray of snow and ice, its supercharged engine's roar cutting through the cold air, Michael felt his knees go weak. The acceleration was startling despite the slippery surface and within moments the princes were out of easy reach, chasing towards the first wide left-hander around one of the lake's little islands. Michael couldn't see the entire corner, but what he saw was enough controlled skidding and sliding to grudgingly admit that Carl Philip might know what he was doing. Aside from the whole fact that he insisted on doing it on a lake.

The Porsche was drawing close to the exit of the corner, but instead of accelerating out of it and into the little straight that followed, it gradually slowed.

Michael and Sven were on their way to the tech with the radio even before the car had rolled to a stop. There was a lot of rapid-fire Swedish, first between Sven and the tech, then the tech with his headset, and over the little speaker they got grainy responses from Carl Philip that sounded sharp but not like he needed help. The tech answered, then shrugged and shut up.

"What did the prince say?" Michael demanded to know.

"He's all right, and he said to give them a minute and not send anyone out on the track after them." Sven exchanged a look with him that told Michael they were both thinking the same: if the princes had wanted a moment of privacy, they could have found a less conspicuous way.

They kept watching as the Porsche slowly started to move again and made its way through the serpentines leading back to the finish line at a relatively sedate pace. A little strange, but Michael wasn't going to question anything that meant his prince was in less danger of having some sort of accident, even if there was nothing to really crash into out here.

The car came to a halt by the upturned crates that held the service equipment. Carl Philip climbed out first, his hair standing on end as he took off his helmet and went around the bonnet to the right side of the car and opened the passenger door to lean inside.

Michael straightened, muscles tensing. Was anything wrong with William? But no, it looked as though he just hadn't quite figured out how to get out of the five-point harness and unhook the roll cage. After a minute he was out as well, looking a bit shaky on his feet. Hard to blame him for that, Michael thought, after all he wasn't insane enough to skid around on frozen lakes as a regular pastime.

Thank God for that.

He was even more grateful when William stayed out of the car for the next rounds and watched from the safety of the shore while Carl Philip and his team tinkered with traction control settings and suspension finetuning inbetween test rounds on the track. Michael was no expert, but he had the sneaking suspicion that the whole exercise was less about optimising the racing setup - even the Swedes were not crazy enough to actually race cars on ice on a regular basis - but about seeing how far you could powerslide a Porsche GT3 around a corner. Judging by the enthusiastic crew reactions, they were setting some records that day.

One of the few redeeming values of Sweden in winter was that there wasn't all that much daylight. Just an hour later, after William had gone along for a final spin across the lake, they were packing up and ready to head back to civilised places that had walls and indoor heating.

"I'll drive, sir," Sven said, holding up the car keys and making for the driver's seat of the armoured Volvo they'd arrived in before Carl Philip could protest. Sneaky, Michael thought, and it would spare them a repeat of what he'd just seen of Carl Philip's cornering techniques. Scandinavian flicks had their place in rally driving, but not on the road while transporting British royalty. Carl Philip sulked for a few minutes, but the prospect of sharing the back seat with William seemed to win him over eventually.

"Are you sure they'll be safe here?" Michael asked Sven after they had delivered the princes to Carl Philip's cottage. There was no place for anyone else to stay, and it didn't sit at all well with Michael to let William out of his sight.

"There's an elaborate alarm system on the house," Sven said, bringing them back on the main road. "And there's a place half a kilometre down the road that rents out rooms, we always use those when someone needs to stay close to the prince."

Michael sighed, not happy at all with the whole situation. Nobody knew that William was here - the invitation had been official, but hadn't gone beyond the secretaries and security staff - but that didn't mean nothing could happen.

"Don't you ever worry about leaving Carl Philip out of your sight like that?" he asked.

Sven shrugged. "There's not much we can do about it. And he's never been a high-profile target for anyone. We're keeping a tighter watch on his sisters, but with him... even people here in Sweden forget at times that he exists. You saw it, he can walk through Stockholm without anyone taking notice. That he doesn't get up to anything interesting for the paparazzi helps too, they have better things to do than follow him around and wait until he does something worth mentioning that's not on the official schedule. I'm assigned to him mostly so we know where he is, not because there's any danger. And we only started doing that when he almost got lost in Venezuela once, and then ended up under arrest at the American border."

"Lost in Venezuela," Michael repeated, not sure he'd heard right. Or whether he wanted to have heard right, for that matter.

"He forgot his passport and had to stay behind," Sven explained. "But other than that, he hasn't really gotten into any trouble lately that made a security presence necessary."

"I just hope it's not going to change anytime soon. You know what it's like for us with Prince William, it would be impossible to leave him on such a loose leash."

Sven slowed down and pulled into the driveway of a house in the merry red colours common to the area. "That's why I pray they'll manage not to be discovered," he said. "It would change a lot of things."

They took their bags inside, and after another exchange in Swedish with the owner - slow enough this time that Michael managed to catch the basic ideas - they had room keys and quickly found their way upstairs to get settled. William's visit was intended for three days, long enough for Michael to wonder just how serious his prince was getting here. You didn't go to that sort of effort for a fling.

At least normal people didn't; with royalty it sometimes was hard to tell.

He'd just finished unpacking - which mostly consisted of putting his bag on a chair where it was out of the way and easy to get to - when he heard a knock at the door. Not entirely unexpected, and he gave Sven a quick smile as he let him in.

"Think they'll stay put for the rest of the day?" he asked and closed the door again.

Sven shot him an amused look. "There's nothing on the official schedule until tomorrow," he said. "And I'm fairly sure that one of the stops on the way here from Stockholm was to pick up... supplies, so it's safe to say they'll keep themselves occupied."

"Whatever shall we do with the time..."

You really didn't go to such lengths for just a fling, Michael thought a while later, his head pillowed on Sven's shoulder as they lay in bed together, resting a little. Trailing lazy patterns across his lover's skin, he listened for those quiet, pleased grumbles that told him he'd found a sensitive spot. You didn't do it for just a fling. But for more, you just might.

***

Navigating Clarence House in the dark was something Harry had been doing for years now. He couldn't even remember how many times he had sneaked in, cautious not to make so much noise that he'd wake his father, which would result in a stern lecture, or Wills, which would result in the nearest throwable object being lobbed at his head.

Years of sneaking, however, did not mean that he was entirely sure of where he was going, not when they'd moved the apartments around so often, from second floor up to third, then down to first, back to second... The combination of a nice fuzziness from a little whisky and a general lack of navigational talent didn't help.

He stumbled a little when he hit the third floor landing, wavering whether this was where he was supposed to be or if it was up to fourth. But fourth floor was a whole floor further up, it would be a shame to make that trip for nothing if he was mistaken and his rooms were down here on third after all.

Did they even have a fourth floor here in Clarence House?

Better check the third first, it couldn't hurt.

Second door to the right, he thought, then was foiled when it turned out that there was no such door because there suddenly were windows and that wasn't how it should be.

Harry considered this sudden turn of events, then marched on. A true Windsor-Mountbatten... Mountbatten-Windsor... whatever, didn't let himself be defeated by architecture. If there were no doors to the right, then a door to the left had to do. Simple as that.

Satisfied with the solution, Harry nodded to himself and aimed for the door. It opened at the first - almost the first, at least - attempt, and he let the sudden momentum carry him inside without bothering with the light. There was the moon shining through the window, anyway, and the sky and the stars, and it was such a pretty night, light would just be a shame. He flipped a salute to the moon in thanks, opened the door to his bedroom, then stopped short when his mind registered that someone seemed to have moved his bed into the other corner. And that it was occupied.

Harry came to a wavering halt and tried to focus less on the nice fuzziness and more on the facts at hand. Someone in his bed wasn't exactly a reason for alarm. Two people... not that much reason for alarm either, actually. But one of them was Wills, and that was just a little too weird for him.

"Sorry Wills," he said with a little wave and a cheery grin. "Didn't mean to interrupt. Stay here, I'll find somewhere else to crash for the night." He squinted at the second person, so nicely snuggled up to his brother that it made him want to curl up somewhere with someone too. "They're making Carl bunk with you again? What's happened to your own bedroom?"

He didn't wait for an answer, just worked on turning himself around again. Then turned once more, this time stopping when he was more or less facing towards the door, and stumbled out.

Man, but Wills had the right idea, he thought as he worked his way down the hallway. Go find someone to share with, and then sleep and have a lazy morning with fruit loops and tea and Alex and sex and sex with Alex. And fruit loops.

At the stairwell he stopped, tempted for a moment to see what had happened to their fourth floor, but then went down instead. Alex would be home by now. Such a perfect girl she was, even if she always had that sad look if he got himself into trouble. So he'd just go to her and keep himself out of trouble. Perfect plan, with the perfect girl. He dimly remembered her saying something about being out of condoms that morning, but that had been this morning and now it was night and almost tomorrow morning so it would all be fine.

***

After Carl had dropped his little bomb about himself and William at breakfast, it took until the afternoon before Madeleine managed to catch her sister alone.

"Did you know about it?" she asked as soon as she'd tracked Vicky down in the private apartment she now shared with her husband until the renovations at Haga were finally completed.

Vicky looked up from the bag she was packing. For Daniel, Madeleine guessed; he'd still have to stay at the hospital for a while, and they hadn't exactly had time to prepare when they'd brought him there. "You mean Carl?"

"Have we had any other great secret revelations today that I missed?" Madeleine asked, coming to her sister's side. After the scare of the past days, she felt a lot better when Vicky was within easy reach of someone, just in case. Seeing her almost crumple once had been too much already.

"Not that I'm aware of. Give me that book over there please?" Vicky gestured towards the low table next to the sofa, her hands against the small of her back. She looked tired; however much rest she'd gotten since leaving the hospital, it hadn't been enough. "And take the magazines too, he'll be bored out of his mind soon."

Madeleine frowned at her. "Oh sit down, let me do this. Just tell me what you need, I'll do the fetching and packing for you."

For a moment it looked as if Vicky might protest, but when Madeleine kept glowering at her, she settled in the armchair by the window with a quiet groan. "I've got most of it, I'm just trying to think whether I missed something. See if you can find his reading glasses? They should be on the shelf behind you."

Madeleine dutifully looked for and found the glasses and quickly had them stowed in the bag, then stacked the books by the side. She'd need to repack this properly, she decided; Vicky had just collected things but not really sorted them. "So, Carl," she prompted.

Vicky sighed softly, hands folded across her pregnant belly. "It's been obvious he's been seeing someone, but he didn't tell me anything," she said. "And I knew he really likes being with William, but I didn't quite put the two together. I probably should have, these last few days."

"You had other things to think about." Madeleine spotted a framed picture of Vicky and Daniel on the side table and went to pick it up. "Should that go in?" she asked. It was a cute picture, from one of the holidays on Öland, and she wondered whether Carl had been the one to take it. Probably; you could rely on him to have a camera and know how to make the most of it, at least when he got to stand behind it rather than in front.

"Yes, good idea," Vicky said, smiling at the picture. "Anyway, I didn't know, not really. But it wasn't a big surprise."

Madeleine nodded. "You know, I thought he was seeing Andrea again."

"Andrea?" Vicky's eyes narrowed, and Madeleine realised that the name probably wasn't that easy to place.

"Casiraghi? Charlotte's older brother." She carefully wrapped the picture frame in one of the shirts Vicky had already packed so it wouldn't be damaged.

"Why would he... again?" Vicky now sounded thoroughly confused. Apparently Charlotte didn't gossip quite as much with her as she did with Madeleine. The benefits of being a younger child in a royal family; you ended up spending much time with people who were actually interesting to talk to rather than having to oversee banquets and look interested while officials kept telling you mind-shatteringly boring facts.

The picture safely stowed away, Madeleine shrugged. "The F1 weekend two years ago, apparently," she explained. "Trust Carl to combine cars with other sorts of fun."

He'd come home a lot more at ease after that week. Back then Madeleine had attributed it to a combination of plenty of sun, a place where the chances of anyone recognising him were even lower than at home, and shiny fast cars going in circles. That he'd seized the chance to pick up a new sexual orientation at the same time was something she'd only heard from Charlotte a few months later when they'd run into each other in New York. At the time, it had seemed mostly amusing chatter with no real substance behind it until she had gotten confirmation from Andrea last winter.

"And how do you know about that?" Vicky asked. "Carl didn't tell you, did he?"

"Of course not," Madeleine said loftily, "so I asked Andrea."

Vicky blinked. "You asked him," she repeated. "How did that go? 'Hi Andrea, sorry to bother you but are you by any chance shagging my brother?'"

Madeleine grinned. "Something like that," she said. "Anything else I should pack?"

"Toiletries, but I'll take those separately, don't worry about them right now." Vicky leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at her again. "Does it bother you that Carl has fallen in love with another man?"

It would have been easy to give a flippant answer to that, but something about her sister's voice made Madeleine reconsider. The three of them had always gotten along well, the usual childhood rivalries aside, but Vicky had been the one who'd kept them in line. Always the peacekeeper and the diplomat who'd mediated their fights, even if they'd just been over who got to use the big bucket in the sandbox.

Madeleine couldn't shake the feeling that Vicky was watching for any signs that she might have to step up as a referee once again, this time over matters more serious than a shovel.

"I thought he and Emma would get back together," she said carefully. "But now that she's found someone else, that's not going to happen, is it? So it's good he's not waiting." She sat down on the sofa and dragged the bag for Daniel over to her side. "I didn't expect him to fall for a man, least of all for William," she said, packing the books in a tidy stack to one side. "I thought Andrea was... well, a rebound thing for Carl with not much behind it, because of the timing. But if that's what makes him happy, then so be it."

She'd had time to get used to the idea that her brother might not take the conventional approach where his relationships were concerned. Still, it would have been a lot easier for everybody involved if he'd settled down with Emma, or with another girl like her. Even Sofia would have been not too much trouble once the idea had time to become familiar. With William, Madeleine was not entirely sure what to make of it. He'd been the epitome of politeness and friendliness in the winter, but when it came down to the core of it she didn't know him and neither did she see the appeal.

Which was probably good, given that her brother had apparently taken him off the market, and wouldn't that cause an uproar among young women all over the continent. At least they'd be able to console themselves with the thought that no other woman would have him either.

When she looked up, Vicky was regarding her with a thoughtful expression on her face. "Did you know that William came here this week just because Carl needed him to?" her sister asked.

Madeleine considered this. It was hard enough for her to make a spontaneous trip; her schedule had to be adjusted, security had to be informed, her parents had to be told. And she was just the youngest of three royal children and not the direct heir to a throne. That William had done it, and done it quickly, too... it was something she had to chalk up in his favour. He'd either worked a miracle there, or was currently getting his ears blistered over vanishing without observing proper protocol.

"Did he say anything to you about how long they've been together?" she asked. The winter vacation looked a bit differently, seen in light of the new information she now had, and she was willing to bet that the daydreaming at the Nobel Prize ceremony had been about William as well.

Vicky laughed a little. "He actually told me they started this at my wedding," she said. "A year, more or less."

"And he kept it from us for all that time." That was what didn't sit well with her about the whole situation, that their brother hadn't trusted them with something so important. She knew about the need for secrecy, but she'd thought the three of them were closer than that.

"I don't think he'd have lied to us if we'd asked. Perhaps he needed to figure it out for himself first? I can't imagine that was an easy step to take, he's too smart not to understand the implications of it and how difficult this is going to be."

She could see the silent question in Vicky's eyes. _If he needs you, will you stand?_

It hurt a little to think that Vicky felt she had to ask. But this wasn't a small thing, and if Madeleine had correctly read the encounter between Carl and their father this morning, then there had been more than just a bit of surprise caused by the news. It made sense that Vicky was making sure they'd be supportive and stick together.

"He's been there for you and me whenever anything happened and we needed him," she said firmly. "We'll take our turn and watch out for him now."

Vicky nodded at that. "And hope that he won't find himself in a situation where he needs it."

The press probably wasn't looking for either Carl or William to be with a male lover, but once the reporters caught on... and it wouldn't take them too long to start speculating, not once someone slipped for the first time and made some affectionate gesture in the open.

Madeleine zipped the bag shut. "It's _Carl_, you know what he's like when it comes to media attention. Half the time he escorts me somewhere, I'm hanging on to his arm so he doesn't try to make a run for it when he sees a camera pointed at him. And William isn't someone who can take a single step without someone taking a picture."

Vicky sighed. "I know," she said. "We'd better be ready to pat his back and make soothing noises the first time he flees and ends up here to hide."

***

In hindsight, rescuing the chicken had been a bad idea.

At the time it had sounded logical. They'd won the polo match, which naturally warranted celebration, always a bit tricky when you ended up doing that in the countryside rather than London. But that was no justification for not trying your best, so of course they'd had a few drinks. Then a few more. One thing led to another, and when the need for a mascot for the party was suggested, the nearest animal was picked. That had been a chicken intended - as one of Harry's pals had decided - for tomorrow's cook pot (the death threat hadn't been verified, but it seemed unheroic to wait and leave the thing in mortal peril while asking).

So the chicken had been bought (rescued! heroically! at risk of life and limb! or at least, risk of not getting served another beer!), and when the country pub they'd stayed at shut down for the night, they were off to London again. The chicken, now named Ethel by mutual agreement, including her own, came along.

They took Ethel on a little tour down to Trafalgar Square to show her the sights - she'd never been to London, and wasn't that a shame, poor little bird - and, with the night still young, headed for the clubs.

It turned out that Ethel shared Harry's intense dislike for The White Stripes, because the moment he and his pals went into the club, Ethel tucked securely under his arms, and the sound system blared the first riffs of Seven Nation Army at them, the chicken panicked and tried to claw her way to freedom, an act of bravery Harry would have applauded if she hadn't attempted to go through his chest in the process.

Walking out of a club with a wildly shrieking chicken under your arm and blood on your torn shirt front when you knew there were paparazzi camped outside wasn't a wise thing to do, not even when you were comfortably fuzzy around the edges already.

The obvious solution presented itself. Borrow a feather boa from one of the girls - and save her from being such a fashion disaster - drape it around you to cover up the blood, grab the chicken and go. Then tell the blasted paps that you're doing charity work to raise the awareness about cruelty done by chickens, or maybe to chickens, anyway, cruelty with chickens, and all's fine and you won't even be settled with the honorary patronage of some pony club in the morning to make up for the bad press.

He even remembered to be polite and introduce Ethel, then let himself be ushered into the car.

"Shall I take the chicken, sir?" the security officer asked him. At least it was Paul tonight, he never bothered with stupid questions like some of the other guards, he just did whatever the moment required.

Harry hesitated. You didn't just abandon your girl like that, but on the other hand he had the feeling that Ethel had done something on his shirt that he wasn't too keen to investigate.

"She likes riding in the front," he said and passed her over. "Just make sure she's got her seat belt fastened."

Paul carefully accepted Ethel and held her tight. "Of course, sir. Ah... do you need to see a doctor? You've got blood on your neck."

"Nah, that's fine, just a scratch." But if he went home looking like this, someone would freak out again. Well, Wills wouldn't, but he'd once run into Camilla when he'd had strawberry jam smeared across his face - what an awesome party that that had been - and it had taken hours for his ears to stop ringing from her shocked scream.

Better avoid a repeat of that. He liked his ears.

Twenty minutes later, he made a note to himself to avoid women in general when in a similar state, because they seemed to either turn hysterical or frightfully efficient when faced with blood.

At least Alex didn't scream when he showed up at her door just past three in the morning. She just grabbed his arm, dragged him inside and yanked his jacket off. That was what you got for dating a future doctor, they didn't let themselves be fazed by a bit of blood. And while he usually appreciated the medical side of her less than the side of her that was an exotic dancer to pay her bills, right now it was a nice benefit.

"Harry what did you do?" she asked as she made him sit down on one of the rickety little folding chairs at her tiny table. "Get that shirt off, it smells like you fell into a manure heap. What's happened to you?"

He blinked at her. "Well... Ethel got a bit upset, and I had to hold her really close, and she sort of panicked..."

Alex stared at him, her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Ethel."

"Yes, we met her at the polo match today. Lovely girl, she and I had a lot of fun, spent the evening together, sort of a hen night..."

The look Alex gave him was thunderous. "And where's Ethel now?" she asked as she helped him unbutton the rest of his shirt.

"Down in the car... oh god I hope they won't harm her, I didn't think about it when I left her. You think they'll kill her?"

Alex balled up his shirt, then tossed it into the laundry bin. "Kill her? Harry, just what have you been up to tonight? I can smell you've been drinking, but did you do anything else?"

Harry shook his head vigorously, then regretted it when it felt like his brain was slowly sloshing about inside his skull. "No, just a few beers." Always the safe answer under the circumstances. And there had been beer involved at one stage. "Stay here, I've got to check on Ethel."

He made to get up, but Alex easily pushed him down again. "Don't you dare move," she told him and went to get a metal box off the high shelf in the kitchen. "You can check on your lady friend later, first you need to get cleaned up."

"What if she lays an egg?"

His girlfriend's eyebrows almost hit her hairline. "An egg," she said slowly.

"I didn't ask her whether she's on birth control or anything, and I really I don't know how that sort of thing would work with her anyway. I guess there's a chance there could be an egg, Ethel's a girl after all."

Would security harm her? Surely not, she hadn't done anything. They'd probably take her back home, or at least put her on the train back to the countryside.

A cold, wet towel in hand, Alex started to clean him up a lot more briskly than she usually did. He slowly drifted off under the touches, thinking of all the movies where the hero had his wounds treated by his lovely girl, and usually they then ended up on the floor or in bed for some fantastic sex...

He yelped when Alex attacked him with disinfectant, and all happy thoughts fled before the stinging smell.

"Next time tell Ethel to be more careful," she said, leaning close to inspect the cuts. He looked at her hair, the scent of her shampoo not quite overlaying that of chlorine and hospital.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I really should introduce you two. You'll like her, she's got those nice brown tail feathers..."

Alex stopped and looked up, her hand blessedly cool against his chest. "Feathers. Why does she have feathers?"

Harry shrugged, not sure he was up to philosophical questions right now. "She's a hen, you probably have to ask a botanist. Henologist. Whoever does chicken studies."

"Ornithologists," Alex said absently. "Ethel's just a chicken?"

"You don't need to say it like that," Harry protested. "She's a nice chicken."

Alex shook her head. "Oh, Harry," she said as she leaned down to kiss his forehead.

***

Under normal circumstances, the situation would have warranted a hefty dose of alcohol, either in celebration or in order to dull the panic about presenting a new lover to their parents.

However, circumstances weren't normal. Madeleine took one look at her heavily pregnant sister in the overstuffed armchair, another look at her brother who was perched on the edge of the sofa and seemed like he was about to faint from sheer nervousness, and brewed a pot of chamomile tea instead.

"You knew the official introduction had to come at some point," she said as she set a mug of tea down in front of Carl. "Look at it this way, at least mamma and pappa already know who he is."

"And they like him," Vicky added, taking her own mug from Madeleine and smiling at her.

Carl gave them both a miserable look. "That was before they knew I'm shagging him."

"Admittedly that adds a few complications." Madeleine sat down at his side and rested her hand between his shoulder blades, a little trick she and Vicky had figured out years ago when it came to calming him down. "You might want to be careful how you call it when they are around, though, so they think about it less in terms of sex and more in terms of the two of you holding hands and giving each other flowers."

"They've probably figured it out," Vicky said.

"Still, no need to draw their attention to it." Madeleine patted Carl's back, then leaned forward to get a look at his pale face. "Do you know already what the schedule will be for you once you're in London?"

"Wills called about it earlier," he said, and Madeleine exchanged a knowing look with her sister at that, "but he wasn't sure. There's going to be a meeting with Queen Elizabeth first of all and the rest will be decided then."

"That makes sense," Vicky said in that wonderfully reasonable tone of voice of hers that had worn down even their father's resistance against her intention to marry Daniel. "They need to see first what the situation is and whether you and William are serious. You are, aren't you?"

Carl raised his head. "Of course we are," he said. "It just wasn't supposed to happen like this."

Madeleine had to wonder just how he had expected it all to turn out. Keep it a secret forever? That would hardly have worked; it was almost a miracle that they'd managed to hide it for so long already. With a normal, ordinary person Carl might have stood a chance not to be discovered, but never with someone like William, not when reporters practically lived in his back pocket. At least those hyenas hadn't gotten hold of the news yet, but that was just a matter of time. They had already begun to speculate when Carl would be in his next relationship, until Vicky's pregnancy had diverted their attention. Fortunately for him, the future crown prince or princess was more interesting than a younger prince's so far relatively unspectacular private life. Even Sofia had only held any real fascination because she'd been something at least slightly glamorous; with any other royal, nobody would ever have batted an eyelash there.

"I'm sure it's all going to turn out well," Victoria told him. "As long as you and William know what you want."

That might be the tricky bit, Madeleine suspected. She knew Carl well enough to be aware that he occasionally didn't consider consequences and outcomes as much as he should, and those sorts of situations then tended to result in his more hare-brained ideas.

"What we want? For all of this to stay private, perhaps." Sighing, Carl ran a hand through his hair, then frowned at his fingers.

"One day you'll listen to me about using less gel." Madeleine passed him a napkin so he could wipe his hand. "You really didn't need to keep this from us, you know that, don't you? We'd never have told anyone."

Across from them, Vicky nodded. "I understand you didn't want to discuss it with us yet," she said calmly. "But whether you're ready or not, it's out now and we're not going to pretend we don't know. That's not going to help you in any way. You've crossed a line and you can't go back anymore, so you need to make the best of it now, and that means including us. We're on your side, you know that you have nothing to be afraid of where we're concerned."

Vicky, Madeleine thought, really was getting good at imparting sage advice. Now if only she started actually follow it herself rather than be stubborn about it...

"It's not that I was worried about you two," Carl said, and Madeleine patted his back in reward for the faith in them. "But a meeting over tea with the Queen of England, and with pappa when he's being official? That's a different matter altogether."

"You'll have William there, won't you?" Victoria asked.

"I doubt they'll want to question us separately," he said and smiled a little when Madeleine leaned against his shoulder lightly. "But I'd much rather spend the time together with William doing other things..."

"... than explain exactly what things you two are doing," Madeleine finished for him. "And here I was thinking you'd be the one in this family who'd manage to eventually have a simple relationship without complications."

She and Vicky had both overcome the difficulties that had been thrown in their paths, but she'd hoped at least Carl would be spared. But no, of course he had to find an even bigger potential for trouble than either of his sisters. Not intentionally, of course, there'd never be a day when Carl would go courting trouble deliberately, but hopefully he wasn't starting to exhibit a new talent here.

"He'll manage, too," Vicky said, absently rubbing her belly. "It's just a matter of dealing with a few issues that wouldn't come up if William were a woman, or not an English prince."

Madeleine nodded. "And at least nobody's going to need princess training, that's going to make it easier too. People keep saying that it would be so much easier for us royals if we just found partners among each other, so maybe that will make up for the other difficulties and even out in the end."

"I'll let you know," Carl said. "At least I'll be further back in the succession soon, that's going to help as well." He glanced at Vicky, speculation plain on his face. "Are you finally going to tell me what you're having? I really could use the distraction right now."

Victoria just gave him that slightly manic grin of hers. "Keep guessing," she said. "You've got a fifty percent chance of getting it right."

"But you know, don't you?"

She patted her belly in amusement. "Of course I do."

"And Daniel?"

"He's not going to tell you either."

If Vicky had intended to distract Carl from his own concerns, then it definitely was working, and had done so for the past months already, ever since she'd dropped the first hint that she knew the baby's gender and wasn't going to tell. It was almost a shame that this particular little game was going to be over soon, and that they weren't going to be able to repeat it immediately.

Carl turned his head to look at her. "She's told you, hasn't she?" he asked.

Madeleine grinned. "What do you think?" she returned. "Sisters have a right to know."

"You'll appreciate the surprise," Victoria said amiably. "Think of it as a way of taking your mind off the situation at hand."

The expression on Carl's face clearly said that if he weren't under strict instructions not to aggravate her in her condition, he'd not accept that for an answer. But if there was one thing Madeleine was absolutely certain of, it was that Carl wasn't going to do anything that might pose the slightest risk to Vicky right now. Not just because she was his sister, but because that baby was going to more or less eliminate his risk of ever ending up on the throne.

On the other hand he was taking himself out of the equation anyway if this relationship with William was going to last. Whether he'd figured this out by himself so far, however... Madeleine had her doubts. Right now he was occupied enough with the idea of going even marginally official with it all, the idea that this was bound to end up in a wedding if they kept it up probably hadn't occurred to him yet.

With some luck, she'd get to be the one to break the news to him.

They talked a little longer, of small matters and little things, before Victoria declared that she needed to get some rest so she'd be up to tomorrow's council session she'd be taking over for their father. Madeleine had offered to handle it instead, but Vicky had insisted, and maybe for the best. She could use a few distractions for herself these days while Daniel was still in hospital, and an easy half hour with just a quick photo session might do the trick of taking it all off her mind for some time.

"Will you be all right tomorrow?" Victoria asked Carl as they accompanied her back to her apartment.

The smile on their brother's face was not quite as reassuring as he probably wanted it to be, but there was enough determination behind it to make Madeleine feel better nonetheless. "I'll have to be if I want to keep Wills, won't I?"

***

When a woman began a conversation with 'I need to tell you something,' it was never good news. They either dumped you, or admitted an affair with your best friend, or went for the perennial 'let's just be friends' favourite. Mark Anthony probably had heard this from Cleopatra right before the other Romans showed up at the door.

So when Alex said, "Harry, there's something I need to tell you," he outwardly stayed calm as he munched on his breakfast cereals - no fruit loops but boring cornflakes, how could this possibly have been a good day - and inwardly prepared for the worst. At least she'd waited until the next day and not kicked him out during the night. It was always a little embarrassing to have to catch a ride with your security guard at four in the morning, especially when you weren't quite sure where your pants had gone.

"I'm listening," he said. And he would - after all, he liked Alex. Quiet little Alex with her lovely brown eyes and her soft hair and her strict insistence that she'd stop her dancing once she got herself through university. She could have been proper relationship material, even family-acceptable, if it hadn't been for that tiny little detail of being a Catholic.

They no longer beheaded you for dating a Papist in this country, but what gran could do to him when it came to inappropriate relationships was almost as bad. A pity, he'd really have liked to find out whether he and Alex could work in the long term.

Alex looked at him, arms wrapped around herself as she leaned against the kitchen counter. "Harry, I'm sorry," she said.

Breaking up, then, he thought.

"I'm pregnant."

His spoon clattered into the cornflakes bowl.

Gran might very well behead him for this one after all.

***

Until the early afternoon, His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, had been convinced it was going to be a boring day. Two charity events in the morning, a lunch with Anne to show her some new horses, and nothing whatsoever planned after that. Unexciting as a whole, and even the tabloids weren't entertaining. William, getting a child on the Swedish Crown Princess? Philip had met the girl, and he was quite sure that she had too much sense to renounce her own throne for William's.

Things perked up considerably, however, once William had made his report after coming back from Sweden. Philip had just settled down with a cup of Earl Grey and the Telegraph when he found himself faced with a highly flustered-looking Prince of Wales.

"You need to speak to William," Charles said as soon as he had shut the study door behind himself. "He listens to you, you may be able to talk him out of this madness."

Philip leaned back in his armchair and put the newspaper aside to face his eldest son. Apparently the day was going to be interesting after all.

"What has he done?" he asked.

"Started a secret relationship with Prince Carl Philip of Sweden." Charles sat down heavily in the chair opposite from him. "You must talk him out of this."

Philip gave him an amused look. "Why?" he asked.

"Why?" Charles repeated, his voice incredulous. "Why? Because if the press gets hold of this they will think that he is a homosexual!"

"If he's been sleeping with that Swedish prince, I'd say it's a given he's not interested exclusively in women," Philip said, picking up his tea cup. "So where's the problem? He even picked a prince."

His grandson in a relationship with another man. Let the Luxembourgians top that, they only had a heir apparent with suspected leanings. And now William seemed to have caught the only other available prince in the whole of Europe. The next meeting with good old Jean was going to be highly amusing in terms of royal one-upmanship.

"This is a serious situation!" Charles almost shouted.

Philip raised an eyebrow. "And you wouldn't be in here telling me to talk to William if your mother were already doing it, so she must approve. We both know she is a lot better at keeping the boys in line. If she has no objection, then I'm not going to mind either. If William picks a man, let him, it's just going to make the monarchy look as if we're going with the times. There's still Harry, it's not like we'll have a succession crisis."

Charles stared at him, then threw up his hands in exasperation and got up. Philip watched him leave, then took another sip of his tea.

Sometimes, they all worried far too much.

***

Getting picked up by an armed security officer in a black car with tinted windows was one of the scariest experiences in Alexandra's life. It ranked higher than finding herself with Prince Harry of Wales as her current boyfriend, and even higher than finding herself suddenly and accidentally pregnant by said prince a little later. Alexandra was no expert, but she suspected that royal security guards didn't bode too well when it came to women in her position.

She was fairly sure that beheading mistresses bearing royal bastards was frowned upon these days, but when you were in an armoured car with armed security personnel and being taken off to see the Queen, it was hard to see the comfort in it.

When the car finally stopped and the security officer - Helen, she'd said her name was - came around to open the door for her, Alexandra was a little surprised to find herself not at Buckingham Palace but at Clarence House instead.

"We'll stash you here for a little while," the officer told her with a kind smile. "Her Majesty will make time for you later today, so I thought you'd prefer to wait here with Prince Harry for now."

"That's... nice," Alexandra managed as she was led up the stairs. Waiting with Harry was good, that might just help her keep the panic down to a manageable level.

The guard let her through the door, then closed it behind them. "Mike, are the princes around?" she asked the dark-haired man sitting at a desk in the hallway who was watching them curiously.

"They're upstairs with the Prince of Wales right now," he said. "I guess you want Prince Harry? But it's going to take a little longer, I think, they've only just gone up."

"Then we'll wait here, there's no point in taking her up to Harry's rooms," the two guards exchanged a look, and Alexandra thought she saw them shiver, "and I'd rather not leave her alone in the first floor reception room. Miss Hamilton, do you mind staying here with us for now?"

Alexandra shook her head. Staying with the guards seemed eminently preferable right now over being by herself in a room somewhere. Helen had been nice to her so far, and it sounded much better to stick by her side if Harry wasn't available right now.

Which he wasn't because he was probably explaining this to his father, who was the Prince of Wales, who was the son of the Queen, and Alexandra felt her knees go weak at the idea.

"There, there, girl, just sit down for a while." A chair appeared at her side and she sank down gratefully. Dear god, she was pregnant by Prince Harry, and they'd exile her to the Orkneys to count sheep for the rest of her life. Damn it, she was a med student, she really ought to have known better than to hope that nothing would happen from that one time. At the very least, she ought to have made some calculations so she'd have realised the risk she was taking by doing nothing.

She stayed on her chair, arms folded tightly across her belly as she waited. A few brief looks aside, the guards left her alone; she was glad for that, she really was not sure what she could have said. At least they seemed friendly, that had to count for something, right?

The front door opened again and when Alexandra looked up she saw two men come in; one was clearly a security guard, though he didn't look like the ones around her, the other was dark and handsome but didn't quite qualify for tall.

"Is Prince William around?" the dark-haired man asked.

The guard at the desk - Mike, she thought, and she'd better start remembering names - shook his head. "No, he's still with the Prince of Wales and Prince Harry."

"Ah." The man sighed, then shrugged. "Of course. I'll just-" He turned a little and seemed to spot her for the first time. "Good evening," he said, giving her a kind smile. "And my apologies, I did not intend to ignore you." He exchanged a quick look with the guards, then returned his attention to her and offered her his hand. "I'm Carl Philip," he said, "and you must be Prince Harry's friend."

She took his hand, then hastily got up when the memory of manners kicked in. "Alexandra," she introduced herself, leaving off her family name since he hadn't offered his either. One of Harry's friends perhaps, she thought, or Prince William's more likely since he'd asked for him. But it was someone closer to her age, and it let her regain some of her sass. Dealing with guys like him was something she knew how to do.

"It's nice to meet you," he said. He had a bit of an accent, but she could not place it anywhere beyond continental. "I assume you're waiting for Harry? Perhaps you would like to keep me company? I believe it might take some time until they're done, and there's no point in you sitting around in the hallway."

One of Harry's friends, then, if he called him just by his name and without the title. Alexandra didn't think she'd ever seen him at the club, but that didn't have to mean much beyond him not being interested in table-dancing, stripping pretty girls. Well, aside from him probably being gay.

"Sure, let's wait together," she agreed. Anything that kept her distracted was welcome right now.

"Wonderful. Miss Alexandra and I will be in the morning room," he said to the guard who'd come in with him. "Could you tell the princes where we are when they are done, please?"

She let him lead her along the hallway and into a room with high windows and what looked like a dining table. Morning room, she thought, and those windows probably faced east so it had to be for breakfast. Trust the royal family to have rooms dedicated to single meals. It was odd to imagine Harry in this setting when she only knew him at her own tiny kitchen counter with a bowl of his beloved fruit loops, in shirtsleeves and with his hair standing on end. At this table, with its heavy white tablecloth and the silver candlesticks, he probably had perfect toast with Earl Grey, and that while wearing a suit and tie.

Carl Philip made her sit down on the chaise longue by the window and put up her feet, then busied himself with the expensive-looking coffee machine. She wondered a little why he was so familiar with it, but didn't ask. If he felt comfortable enough in Clarence House for that, then he simply had to be staying here on occasion - much easier for a male friend of Harry's than her. And if he was anything like Harry, he'd have no trouble rummaging through other people's kitchen shelves in search of food.

"Would you like some orange juice?" he asked her, poking his head into a little fridge hidden in an antique-looking closet. "Since you're surely not drinking coffee at the moment."

"Juice is fine," she told him. Coffee would have been great, especially now that she could smell the cup he'd prepared for himself, but in her condition it simply wasn't a smart idea.

She frowned. And just how did he know about that? She'd only told Harry this morning, he couldn't have had the time to talk to any of his friends about it. And why would he tell someone she didn't even know? This wasn't the sort of news he'd proudly broadcast.

Carl Philip brought her glass and then sat down on one of the chairs at the table, coffee in hand. "They'll probably be done soon," he said. "They already had this discussion in the afternoon once, so it can't take forever now."

Alexandra sighed. Poor Harry, she thought. She'd had a hard enough time explaining her pregnancy to her parents yesterday, but they were normal people. They hadn't been thrilled, but in a way they seemed to see it as a reason for her to quit her job and settle down. Better a single mother than an exotic dancer, they thought, and one of these days she'd have to get around to telling them just who had been the other party involved. Alexandra figured she'd break it to them slowly, bit by bit. An unexpected grandchild was enough for now, she'd save the royal father until next week.

"It probably came as a shock," she said. "I know Harry's not always that diplomatic."

She had the impression that Carl Philip was struggling to suppress a laugh. "That's one way of putting it. He really picked the perfect moment."

"And you'd know about that, of course" she said tartly.

He gave her a grin. "I might. Besides, I know Harry's way of delivering important news. He certainly doesn't believe in sugar-coating it."

"So you're one of his friends?" she asked. Better to get that sorted out right away rather than keep guessing.

"William's, really, but Harry is nice too. We had fun when he visited in Sweden."

"Ah, so that's where you're from. I'd wondered." Tilting her head, Alex studied him. He didn't look Swedish, at least not the way she'd imagined Swedes typically looked, but some of them had to be slight and dark-haired rather than tall, broad and blond. "Where in Sweden?"

The look he gave her at that was a little odd. "Stockholm," he said, sounding quite amused for some reason. "My family lives there, but they are visiting London right now. My parents, that is, my sisters didn't come along. Madde's busy with her new boyfriend, and Vicky doesn't travel well at the moment, she's pregnant."

That explained a few things about him and how he knew about pregnant women's habits. Alexandra leaned back, sipping her juice. "How far along is she?"

"Vicky? Thirty weeks, she's having an August baby." He was watching her as if he were waiting for something, but then lightly shook his head. "She's doing great, but she's not telling whether I'm getting a niece or a nephew. Profoundly unfair, it's her duty as my older sister to share the news."

Alexandra hadn't intended to turn into a woman who talked pregnancies all the time now, but it was an easy topic to cover. They chatted a bit more, and she was happy to let herself get distracted from the tricky aspects of the situation. Later she'd have to sit down with Harry and talk about this in detail, see what he thought of it now that the news had time to sink in. She could imagine what the Prince of Wales would say about it, too. That she heard no shouting right now might just mean that they had good soundproofing.

"Oh, here you are." Harry poked his head through the door, looking mercifully unharmed, if rather ruffled. "Hey Carl, Wills is looking for you, he's up in his apartment."

"Thank you." Carl Philip tidied away his coffee cup, then gave her a little wave. "It's been nice to meet you," he told her.

"Nice to meet you too. Maybe you'll tell me if it's a niece or a nephew in the end?"

Once more he gave her that odd look, as though he were barely suppressing a smile. "You'll probably find out about it," he said, then vanished through the door.

"Interesting guy," she said, holding out a hand and letting Harry pull her to her feet and into a gentle kiss. He'd been a lot more careful with her since this morning.

"Interesting, huh?"

She laughed. "You're not going to be jealous, are you?" she asked, allowing him to hug her close.

He gave her another kiss, a little more demanding this time. "Of course not. You've got an English prince, why would you want a Swedish one?"

She stilled. "A what? A Swedish prince? What are you talking about?"

Harry shot her the same sort of look Carl Philip had, then suddenly burst out laughing.

"Harry!"

He tried valiantly to pull himself together and only managed to give himself hiccups from laughter. "Honey, that was Prince Carl Philip of Sweden," he eventually managed. "Man, he's not going to live that one down."

***

The evening of Princess Beatrice of York began in a fairly ordinary way, with dinner, an hour's worth of studying for the upcoming exams, then a quick run in the park before she'd go to bed.

It went according to plan until she hit the six mile mark, where an unexpected security officer was waiting for her with a car and instructions from her grandmother.

Half an hour later, hair still damp from a hurried shower and in a shirt and slacks that, after later inspection, weren't quite as wrinkle-free as she'd thought when she'd thrown them on, Beatrice sat in the Queen's private study and waited.

Nobody had told her what this was about. Helen had claimed not to know anything, and she'd been Beatrice's RPD officer long enough that she wouldn't lie about that. Asking the guards at Buckingham Palace always was an exercise in futility, so Bea didn't bother wasting her energy on that either. At least there hadn't been anything on the radio news during the car ride; whatever was going on seemed to be a private family matter or, at worst, not yet discovered by the media.

Why she was supposed to be involved in it was another question altogether, of course. Bea classed herself as someone of minor impact and influence in the family, to be dragged out when the more important people, like her uncle and cousins, couldn't be bothered to take care of some small and fairly insignificant event. She'd carved out a little niche for herself in her charity appearances, but it wasn't anything that would warrant an unexpected meeting with her grandmother the Queen at half past nine in the evening.

She was about to get up and look out the window for a while when the small side door opened and her grandmother came in, a butler with a tea tray in tow.

"Good evening Beatrice, good that you are here already." She took a seat, not at her desk but at the small conference table in the corner, then gestured for Bea to sit on the chair opposite from her.

Beatrice followed the command, then waited while the butler served them both tea. There wasn't anything she could guess from the Queen's expression; she looked as though the day had been a long one, but that wasn't unusual, and beyond that everything seemed like it always did.

Tea was poured, lemon, milk and sugar were offered, then the butler took his leave and pulled the door shut behind himself, leaving them alone.

"I assume you are wondering why you are here," her grandmother said, and the statement sent alarm bells ringing in Bea's mind. She'd spent her life in the comfortable knowledge that she had plenty of older royal cousins and that it was unlikely anyone would end up having grand plans for her, especially now that arranged marriages to other noble houses weren't a potential fate for surplus princesses anymore. This, however, sounded like she might need to revise those ideas, and fast.

She laid down her teaspoon on the saucer and nodded. "A little, yes."

Her grandmother threw her a faintly amused look. "Obviously," she said. "Beatrice, I must ask for your silence on what we are going to discuss. You may talk about it to your father, he'll be informed as well, and you may speak to the persons immediately involved. But no-one else, not even your sister or your mother. Is that clear?"

Again, Bea nodded. "I understand," she said, a sinking feeling in her stomach. This didn't sound good at all. Quite the contrary, it sounded suspiciously like family council, and that was not something she had ever intended to get involved in, at the very least not for the next twenty years.

"Very well." Her grandmother paused, then placed her folded hands against the edge of the table. "You are aware of your position in the line of succession?"

Beatrice frowned in bewilderment at this choice of topic. "Yes. Fifth place, behind Uncle Charles, William, Harry and Father." And she was only going to move back further once her cousins started their own families and their children took up the spots directly behind their fathers.

"For all ends and purposes," the Queen hesitated, then went on, "you may consider yourself William's direct heir from now on, and also think about the possibility that you will inherit the crown one day. Your children almost certainly will."

For a moment, all Bea could do was stare at her in complete and utter shock. Then her mind threw itself from frozen paralysis into overdrive.

Uncle Charles came first, that was clear. Then Wills, and why wouldn't he have heirs on his own? And why should Harry be out of the line altogether? Her father, that was probably a matter of biology rather than anything else because he was of the generation before hers, but her cousins? Was there an illness she hadn't been told about yet that affected both of them? But then, why should she be taking place behind William? Surely they hadn't gone back to those old paternity rumours about Harry, had they? But that would only explain his removal from the line, everyone could see that William was the son of Uncle Charles, that much was plain as daylight, and his children would be perfectly eligible.

This made no sense.

"I beg your pardon?" she managed to say once her mouth caught up with the frenzy of her thoughts.

Her grandmother sighed deeply. "I know it comes as a surprise," she said, her voice softening a little. "But there are certain... circumstances that are changing. We're still confirming it all and handling the details, but by now it looks fairly certain already that you will be a lot closer to the throne than you nominally are."

"But... Grandma, why? What's happened with William? And Harry?"

"We have had a fairly eventful day already," the Queen said, delicately stirring her tea. "The immediate concern is that Harry is going to eliminate himself from the succession in a few weeks because his current girlfriend has fallen pregnant. I expect him to tell me tomorrow that he will marry her within the next months, and since she is a Catholic..."

It didn't take more than that. Bea had had a liberal upbringing with parents who'd told her that any choice of partner was up to her, but the concept that she'd better think twice before marrying a Catholic had been drilled into her due to the unavoidable consequences of such a move. To her it had seemed like a theoretical exercise - place five in the succession didn't mean much these days, when you couldn't count on battlefield deaths or assassinations for the people in front of you. But for Harry, who was two significant spots ahead of her and who'd be William's heir until his brother had children...

"So Harry is out," she said contemplatively. "But he's only the spare heir of Uncle Charles. I can see that I'll move into his spot for all practical purposes, but nobody has ever thought he'll ever rule. So why should that change anything for me? There's still William, and he isn't going to abdicate, is he?"

_Please say he isn't_, she thought. If Harry was gone, then William was what stood between her and the crown, and she really, really wanted him to stay there.

Her grandmother took a sip of tea, then set down the cup again with a faint clink as it touched the saucer. "William will inherit, that much is still certain. But the path he has chosen will, in all likeliness, result in him not fathering any heirs."

Beatrice blinked. Whatever had Wills gotten up to? But at least he was still in line. Right now, that was a highly reassuring thing to hear.

"Beatrice, dear, have you ever met Prince Carl Philip of Sweden?" her grandmother asked.

She frowned at the non-sequitur. "I don't think so," she said. "Theodora once took me for lunch with her and Princess Madeleine, but other than that I don't believe I've crossed paths with any of the Swedish royal family."

Eugenie had pointed out Carl Philip as an eligible prince once, when they'd had a girls' night and ended up looking up potential royal husbands. But the pickings had been slim enough even then that Beatrice had decided she'd probably better expand her scope if she didn't want to have only a handful of options, and all of them relatives to some degree. Carl Philip had been one of the best there, along with Guillaume of Luxembourg, but Beatrice had found neither of them particularly tempting when it came to husband material for herself.

"You can expect to see him regularly from now on." The Queen sipped at her tea again, leaving her wondering for a moment what this had to do with everything else. "It would appear that he and William have entered into a relationship with each other."

Once more Beatrice was briefly rendered speechless.

"You're sure?" she eventually managed.

The Queen nodded. "It is the reason why the King and Queen of Sweden are currently visiting," she said. "We have spent most of the afternoon discussing the implications, and both William and Prince Carl Philip are adamant that they intend to continue this."

Beatrice occupied herself with her tea while she gathered her thoughts. "If this isn't just a, a phase..."

"They have been seeing each other for a year," her grandmother said mildly.

"And you are speaking to Prince Carl Philip's parents already," Bea added, clinging to the facts for now. It kept her from hysterics, and she really didn't think that was advisable in front of her grandmother in queenly mode. "So they must be serious about it." She thought some more. "Are they going to make a statement?"

That was the safest sign to tell just how firm a relationship was. As her mother had always told her, before you let the press find out, better be sure you'll keep the boy for at least a few more weeks, and before you actually talk to the press about him, better be sure he'll walk down the aisle with you.

"Eventually there will be an announcement, and sooner rather than later, we can't rely on everybody remaining discreet. But first we must handle the situation with Harry, that takes precedent due to the nature of his young woman's condition. After that... unless something changes, I have made it clear to William that I expect him to handle this pro-actively. Over something so controversial he can't afford to be in the defensive position."

It sounded like her grandmother was making battle plans whenever she slipped into that dry matter-of-fact voice, and it wasn't hard to imagine her at the head of an army, telling them to charge at the enemy.

"So it is not completely certain yet," she said. "At least about William." And even Harry might change his mind, although if he did and left the girl to fend for herself, Bea was going to have some serious words with him the next time she caught hold of him.

She received a smile in response to that. "It's not official yet, no. But I would be very surprised if William changed his mind about it at this point. They both seem very determined to pursue the path they have chosen."

"But..." she trailed off, trying to find the best words, then settled for, "you sound a lot calmer about it than I'd expect."

The smile on her grandmother's face turned a little wistful. "It would be easier if William could be convinced to choose a woman, of course," she said. "But we have to move with the times. And if this is what makes him happy, then so be it. We've had too many examples in the family where strict adherence to duty did not turn out well."

That was an understatement of huge proportions, as far as Beatrice was concerned. Her parents were one prime example, her aunt and uncle provided two more, and you could find someone in every generation.

"So it's going to happen," Bea said, and received a nod in reply.

"I would not be speaking to Carl Gustaf if we did not think so." The Queen leaned back in her chair and studied her. "After William, you are going to be the next in line, you and your descendants. Unless you decide against it."

Beatrice blinked. "That's an option?"

"You may have noticed that the line of succession currently contains over a thousand names. I am sure we could find at least one who is willing. Eugenie would be the next one for me to ask."

Ask, not order, and it was an distinction you learned to appreciate in this family, especially when talking to grandmother.

To become Queen of England one day... it wasn't a very likely prospect, she and Wills were too close in age for that. More probably she'd just be his heir presumptive for the rest of her life. But her children, they would be the ones to follow, and Beatrice was not certain she should be making that decision for them before they even existed. Birthduty, as she had seen in her cousins and experienced for herself to some extent, was not always a good thing.

Still, if Harry had managed to exclude himself, then that could be repeated if necessary, perhaps even by less drastic measures. Simply relinquishing the rights would be enough, and if there was no pressure for her children - and she'd long promised herself that there would not be anything of the sort...

"Wills is going to owe me for this," she stated.

Her grandmother laughed, a far too rare sound from her. "I daresay he will be well aware of that," she agreed. "You will step up as heir?"

Beatrice sighed softly, then she nodded. "Yes," she said. "I will."

***

Facing your boyfriend's family after unexpectedly finding yourself, well, expecting, by him was worrying in any case. When your boyfriend's family included the Queen and the Prince of Wales, that particular conversation reached whole new levels of awkwardness, as Alex could attest after the first brief meeting that evening, which was to be only the start to a series of talks.

They had been nice, under the circumstances, but from the start on it was plain that they only considered two possible options. And since she wasn't going to agree to an abortion no matter what, that left option number two.

"You're sure about this?" Harry asked her. They'd been given the chance to talk in private for a little, and Alex was more than grateful for the opportunity to settle her nerves again. It wasn't as if she spent every morning in the Queen's private study attempting to explain failures in birth control.

Alex nodded, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. "There isn't anything else, is there?" she said. "I'm having this baby, Harry, there's no way anyone's going to change my mind about that, so don't even try."

"I won't." Harry rubbed his hands across his face, then tried to smooth his hair down. He hadn't slept much last night, neither of them had when they'd faced another audience with the Queen this morning. "You know, you don't have to marry me. It's not like anyone'd be surprised about it. Gran can't make you."

Despite feeling more than a little queasy to her stomach from nerves and everything else, Alex had to smile at that. "You realise you're supposed to talk me into marrying you, not convince me to run away, right?" She patted the spot next to her on the sofa. "Get over here."

He did, but with a new caution to his moves instead of his usual saunter. "I'm not going to talk you out of anything," he said as he sat down. "Or into anything, for that matter. It's up to you."

Up to both of them, Alex wanted to correct him, but paused. Was it really? She could say no to this, but she wasn't all that certain it was an option for Harry. Oh, he'd let her walk away, she was sure about that, and she didn't think he'd leave her to fend for herself even if she did. But she suspected that no matter how he felt about it, a refusal wasn't going to come from him.

"Harry... I won't talk to anyone about this if you'd rather leave it that way," she said. "I haven't even told my parents that I know you, so you don't have to do this."

"No. It's my child too, I'm not going to run away from that responsibility." He gave her a faint, humourless smile. "Lord, I never thought I'd ever say that."

She reached for his hand and found his fingers as cold as her own. "You're sure? Because if you aren't, then this isn't a good idea." She ought to be talking him into this, she knew. This was her chance to secure her future and she'd be well off for the rest of her life, no matter how this turned out. But even if she could have justified that to herself, she liked Harry too much to do that to him.

"I'm sure," he said, his hand tightening on hers. "Ah, you know that I'll be out of the line of succession once I marry you, right? What with you being Catholic and all."

Alex froze. She knew that British royals weren't supposed to have anything to do with Catholics when it came to relationships, but she'd never applied that to her own situation.

"Harry-"

"From where I'm standing that's a good thing," he said before she could protest. "The further away I'm from the crown, the better, because if I ever end up having to be King... But you'd better be aware of that too, in case you were planning on calling yourself Queen Alex one day." There was enough teasing back in his voice to remind her of the Harry she knew, the one who didn't spend sleepless nights brooding over what might be, but just took things as they came.

"I'm not doing this because I want to wear a crown one day," she said firmly.

"That's good then." His smile was a bit shakier than usual, but at least it was there. "Though I'm sure someone'll lend you a tiara if you ever need one. So... we're getting married?"

Alex leaned back against the sofa cushions, one hand on her still almost flat belly, the other holding on to Harry's. "Looks like it."

He laughed, just a little. "I've got the feeling this is supposed to go differently," he said wryly. "With me on my knees before you, and all that." He made to get up, but she held him back and smiled when he looked at her in askance.

"Don't bother," she told him. "It's a lot more like you this way."

It earned her one of those boyish smirks that were just so _Harry_, and she happily let him pull her into his arms for a gentle kiss, mock frowning at him when he held back once again. For her taste he'd been far too careful ever since she'd told him about the baby, and if it weren't in the middle of the day and people were expecting them to make an appearance sooner or later, she'd have made it plain to him what she thought about careful handling right now.

She was going to marry Harry, she thought as she leaned against him, her head resting on his shoulder, his arms steady around her. The idea alone was... more than a little unexpected, but she had the feeling she'd better get used to that with him. They'd have to figure things out as they went along, but she had the feeling, deep down, that it was going to work. Harry was a good person and she trusted him not to steer her wrong, even if he might occasionally take a roundabout approach.

"There are a few other things you probably should know before we go and break the news to everybody," he told her.

"What is it?" It was impossible not to tense up at this, and he soothingly stroked her side.

"It's, well, it's not about us, and it's not really something you need to worry about." He looked into her eyes, serious for a moment, then lightly kissed her forehead. "We're going to raise our child a proper Catholic, right?"

The question came out of the blue and she hesitated, not sure what to make of it. "I'd like to," she said.

"Wonderful, then that's settled." Again he kissed her, then rested his cheek against her hair.

"Harry, you're worrying me."

"It's just... if we're raising him... her, catholic, then it's not a succession issue. And that's good because that means everything's fine and Bea's kids can just take over after Wills without anyone spending the next fifty years harping on about precedents and suitability. Bea'll need the time to get used to the idea, anyway."

Alex frowned. "Bea? Princess Beatrice you mean? But why? Surely Prince William is going to marry too."

"Call him Wills, or at least William, he doesn't like the title anyway," Harry said. "You see... I'm quite sure Wills is going to get married eventually, but I daresay kids are a bit unlikely there unless there's something about Carl Philip the two of them haven't told us about yet."

Even for Harry that made little sense. Of course Prince William... Wills... _William_ would have a wife and children eventually, that was just what royal people did, and Alex had no idea what Prince Carl Philip was supposed to have to do with that, after all he was a ... man... and William was too... and a few things about yesterday evening looked rather different all of a sudden.

"Oh."

"Yes, exactly." Harry patted her side, then slid his hand over her belly, reassuringly warm and firm against her. "That's why people aren't freaking out left right and centre over the two of us, actually. Wills and Carl only came out with their big secret two weeks ago, and everybody's been busy panicking over them since then. Compared to that, you and I are positively harmless."

"But that's..." Like almost all British girls her age, Alex had spent her teenage years with vaguely romantic thoughts about Pri- William and the faint chance of a fairytale involving him and her. She'd never thought it could happen, but the possibility that it wasn't going to happen because she might be the wrong gender entirely for that hadn't ever crossed her mind.

"Uh, by the way," Harry said, "I'm not really sure I was supposed to tell you about them. So if Wills comes and looks all serious and says he's got something to talk to you about, look surprised, will you?"

***

Mayhem, Sven was coming to understand, was the status quo in Clarence House these days.

The matters surrounding Prince William would have been one thing; from what Sven could guess and what Mike had told him, the staff had been thrown into a few days of chaos at the news, but they weren't considered some of the best assistants in the country for nothing. They had spent a day wildly gossiping among each other, then everybody had settled down again in preparation for what was to come. It might have been an unexpected revelation, but it swiftly got channelled into formalities and proper red tape. Inform those who needed to know, bring in the Swedish King and Queen to officially discuss details and future proceedings, and prepare for the most likely eventualities.

That much, everybody had been able to handle.

Having Prince Harry cause a minor succession crisis in the middle of it all, however, seemed to create a bit of a meltdown. Which was to be expected, considering the prince involved, but the timing was nothing short of astonishing nonetheless. Sven suspected his king and queen were currently thanking the heavens that neither princess had done anything even remotely this bad, and also that they were possibly wondering whether they could justify abandoning their son to this madhouse.

They wouldn't be the only ones to worry, either. Most of the security staff, lacking Sven's familiarity with British oddities in general and Prince Harry's in particular, were spending the day in growing confusion over the unfolding events.

"Is it always like this?" Britta asked him when they had the chance for a break after escorting everybody over to Buckingham Palace for lunch.

Sven shrugged. "It's not usually quite that weird," he said, sticking to Swedish since they had a handful of British security officers keeping them company. He wouldn't have minded with only the Clarence House group - with them he was familiar enough to know that they didn't mind that sort of chatter - but there were Buckingham Palace guards present as well, and with those you never knew. Mike certainly didn't have a lot of flattering things to say about them. "This time they're outdoing themselves, really. But it will quiet down again, just give them a few days. They're excellent at disaster management."

"They'd have to be with someone like Prince Harry around." Britta shook her head, then frowned at the cup of tea she'd been given. "I'm surprised they don't put a whole squad of officers around him to keep him in line."

"Gossiping, are you?" Mike asked as he came to join them. He kept tugging at the collar of his shirt to hide the bruises at his neck, a gesture that had slowly driven Sven to distraction over the entire day.

"Just a little." Britta surreptitiously put her tea down on the windowsill beside her, then gave him a bright smile. "Learn Swedish, then you can join in."

"For you, my dear, I'll think about it," Mike told her, his right hand on his heart. "Find me some cinnamon rolls and we'll talk."

Sven laughed. "Don't let him fool you, he's fairly good by now." It was tempting to reach out to his lover, just for a little gesture, but right now they were surrounded by too many unknown faces. Even if it was only Britta who'd see them, it still put him on edge at the moment.

"Fairly good?" Mike asked, switching to Swedish. "That's not what you usually say."

"Probably because he isn't flirting with you right now." Britta picked up her tea, drank, then scowled. "You're hiding the coffee somewhere, right?"

"Try around the corner, there should be a little personnel room with a coffee machine," Mike told her. "Just don't let the Buckinghamers put you off."

Once she was gone Sven moved a little closer to his lover, their shoulders touching as they leaned against the windowsill, side by side. "Should we say something official?" he asked after a little while.

He felt Mike sigh. "It would be nice, but we'd better not. Even with you off field duty most of the time it's just not a wise move."

"Does the RPD have any rules about that?"

"What, fraternisation with random Swedes?" Again Mike sighed. "There's nothing, no, and I checked for it. But you can bet it wouldn't get us into a happy situation."

Typically British understatement, Sven thought. It wasn't that he couldn't see the rationale behind it - if he still were a fully active field officer, he'd have to seriously reconsider more than a few things because in their job, personal relationships turned into a liability far too easily. At least that potential trouble spot was gone now, but it didn't mean they didn't have to be discreet.

"We'll just leave it as it is, then," he said, not bothering to hide that he was not content with it.

Mike leaned a little closer and lightly rested his hand against the small of Sven's back. "Looks like it. And really, who'd we tell anyway beyond family and friends? My colleagues know, at least the ones who matter, yours do to, and that's enough. It's not like anyone else has figured it out."

Sven suddenly found the floor extremely interesting. Who'd have thought that Buckingham Palace would have such wonderful carpets even in the hallways that weren't for public display?

"Sven?"

Really, _wonderful_ carpets, with such a pretty pattern.

"Sven?" A little sharper this time. "Anything I should know?"

"Ah... Carl Philip thinks we're having a BDSM relationship?"

For a moment there was nothing but stunned silence from his lover.

"He thinks _what_?"

Sven turned his head and gave him a little smile that he hoped looked amused, but suspected was somewhere between confused and uneasy, and which made the bruises on his face ache. "He said so this morning. I guess we're not going to win prizes for concealing make-up anytime soon."

Mike just stared at him in horror.

"I don't think he cares much," he tried.

It certainly hadn't sounded as though Carl Philip had been anything but amused at the situation. There wasn't anything he could gain by it beyond personal vengeance, and Sven didn't think he'd done anything to warrant that. Quite the opposite, especially during the past year, and he was fairly sure his prince knew that Sven had run interference for him more than once.

By now Mike had his face buried in his hands. "Why can't Carl Philip be good and oblivious about all things that have to do with the security staff? William manages, it can't be that hard!"

"Well, I'm the only real security officer he's ever had so far," Sven pointed out, "when someone could even be bothered to assign people to him. It probably makes me a bit more noticeable."

Mike lowered his hands enough to glare at him. "Did you at least tell him he was wrong?"

"What should I have said?" Sven asked, and by now it was hard not to see the amusement in the whole situation again. "No Sir, we're not engaging in anything to do with bondage or whips, we're actually fairly harmless aside from the occasional bit of experimenting? I really don't think he's interested in that. At worst it might give him ideas, and that's not something I want to imagine."

Mike's eyes went wide for a moment. "Really not," he muttered. "If you ever give me a love bite in a visible spot again, you're sleeping on the couch."

If it hadn't hurt to do so, Sven would have raised an eyebrow at that. "I'm the one walking around with a black eye," he said, cautious to keep any hint of accusation out of his voice. He was still not completely sure he truly understood the currents of last night, but he knew that if he was looking for someone to blame, it probably was himself.

"And I'll put myself on the couch if I ever do that to you again," Mike said. He raised a hand as if to touch Sven's face, then abandoned the move and let it fall to his side. "I really am sorry about that."

Sven shrugged. "It's what I get for antagonising someone trained in hand-to-hand combat and conditioned to eliminate threats," he said, aiming for casual and mostly succeeding. "It's going to heal, and I'll just say I got this while heroically doing my duty."

"Very heroically." There was a hint, just a hint of a smirk on Mike's face, more than enough for Sven to wish they were already off duty. "Perhaps a repeat performance of your heroics can be arranged?"

"I'm sure that's possible..." He brushed his fingers against Mike's, a light touch but enough to make him feel grounded. This mattered, he thought, and it mattered enough to both of them that they'd come out of it all stronger than before. "I love you," he said quietly, deliberately, because this morning it might have gotten lost.

Mike's hand tightened on his own. "That's good to know, because I love you too."

They stood together, just sharing the moment. There would be other matters to worry about again soon, once the day's events caught them up again, but for now it was just the two of them and that was enough.

It seemed that Mike's thoughts went in a similar direction because he eventually said, "I wonder if we can get away with calling in sick for the rest of the day."

"Tempting, but probably not." Far too tempting, but this was neither the place nor the time. Today they could make an exception, but they'd need to talk about this and lay down rules about how they'd handle working together. "There's no chance for a bit of privacy somewhere around here, is there?"

Their hands still joined, Mike smirked, and the mood between them lightened a little. "I'd suggest we borrow the laundry closet for a little while, but with all the secret and half secret things going on right now there's probably a waiting list."

***

As royal weddings went, this one was fairly unusual. Not that anything else could have been expected of Harry. The Brits probably considered themselves lucky that they'd gotten away so easily - a pregnant bride wasn't exactly an unknown occurrence, and from the looks of it he'd even managed to find a fairly sensible girl. Not quite sensible enough not to get involved with him, but aside from that little flaw she seemed to be gifted with the wits that might just see her through this in one piece.

The faint whiff of scandal would never quite die down, of course, as Andrea could attest from personal experience, with plenty of examples among his closer relatives. But just as it had been with his mother, this was a wedding involving someone related to half the aristocracy of Europe. As a result most of the blue-blooded guests had been carefully picked by their respective houses for being important enough not to embarrass the hosts, and yet not quite important enough to get into official or press trouble for being linked in any way to a wedding where the bride was visibly pregnant already. There were a lot of siblings to current heirs apparent present - generally the people Andrea thought of as those who'd figured out by now that they weren't going to sit on their family's throne at any point and who'd breathed a big sigh of relief at that.

Personally, he was still waiting for that sigh himself, but there still was a bit of time for Uncle Albert to figure things out.

He was sticking to the sidelines and watching the unfolding party when he was joined by Princess Theodora of Greece. "Interesting crowd, isn't it?" she said, exchanging her empty glass for a fresh one from a passing waiter's tray.

"Quite," he agreed. "Today this must be the place with the highest density of people third or fourth in line to thrones on the entire planet."

"Just wait, maybe we'll have another of these weddings in a few months." Theodora nodded her head to a couple in one of the window alcoves. "Those two have been very friendly for the entire party already, and I bet they aren't the only ones."

Andrea looked, eyebrows raised. "My, my, who'd have thought. A century ago that would have been an international incident."

"Tonight, just hope they remember about condoms and don't take Harry as an example."

Not that it would have been that bad. Hardly anyone in here was important to a succession somewhere, and if they ended up with a lover from another royal house then it was hardly going to be a catastrophe in any case. At least, not as long as everybody remembered a bit of discretion.

Speaking of which... spotting Prince Carl Philip of Sweden across the room brought back a few rather fond memories that had better be treated with discretion from both sides as well. A fond smile crossed Andrea's face as he contemplated that particular week, and how he wouldn't mind at all if Carl happened to come by for another visit during the next Formula One weekend.

Carl didn't look as though he was entertaining similar thoughts though, if the frown on his face was anything to go by. Andrea followed the direction of his glowering and winced when he spotted the target.

Well, at least the Luxembourgians had had the tact not to send Prince Louis, Andrea thought as he hid his own frown behind a sip of wine. Guillaume... he'd have to be careful not to let himself get caught alone tonight, he really wasn't in the mood for that.

"Have you seen someone interesting?" Theodora asked.

"Just Guillaume," he said. "Over there, with William." Who looked politely bored out of his mind, and desperately in need of a stiff drink.

"Nice-looking guy," Theodora remarked, putting down her empty glass on the table at her side. "Single?"

Andrea smirked. "Yes, as far as I know. But not interested in fair ladies like you, I'm afraid."

"What a shame. I've had so many heavy hints dropped on me about how it would be so wonderful if I met someone here, since everybody's of proper standing and all that... and now you have to tell me that he's gay." She scowled at him. "Spoilsport."

"Would you rather have discovered that by yourself?"

"It would have stopped my mother from all those well-meant coincidental meetings with who she thinks are appropriate young men." Another waiter found himself relieved of a glass of wine, and Andrea really had to admire the Greek tolerance for alcohol once again. Theodora was someone who tended to end up seated at the same tables he did during events like this, and they'd developed a good rapport over the years. And she'd drunk him under the table more than once.

Taking a far more careful sip of his own wine, Andrea smiled at her. "You'll just have to look for someone else," he said. "There are plenty of options here."

"Options for what?" someone asked from behind them. Andrea turned around and found himself nose-to-nose with Amedeo, also known as His Imperial and Royal Highness Prince Amedeo of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este, Prince Imperial of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia, and wasn't that a mouthful.

"We're indulging in some old-fashioned match-making," Andrea explained reasonably. "Theodora needs a husband."

"We just ruled out Guillaume, unfortunately," Theodora added. "And that when he's such a handsome young man. A pity, don't you think so?"

Amedeo threw her a somewhat puzzled look. "Ruled out?"

She sighed deeply. "Not interested in the fair sex, it seems," she stated with a dramatic swoop of her arm. "A complete loss to womanhood. I fear I'll have to find someone else."

The expression on Amedeo's face spoke volumes as to his complete loss of words at that statement, but then he appeared to shrug it off. "Today's the best opportunity for match-making you'll get for a while. Everybody in one place, so you'll have a proper selection to choose from."

Andrea wished he knew that this was dry sarcasm and not stony seriousness, but he wasn't entirely sure. You didn't talk to a Habsburg about marriage prospects, he belatedly remembered, that house had internalised the idea of gaining advantages in bed rather than on the battlefield. They'd cobbled together an entire empire that way, and Andrea was willing to bet that a thousand years of thinking along those lines had left its hereditary mark on Amedeo. Habsburgs, in his experience, were always a little batty. It probably came from the exalted heights of imperial highness-ness.

"Wouldn't you be a possibility as well?" he asked, taking a slightly deeper swallow of wine than he'd intended. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Theodora give Amedeo an appraising look.

Amedeo shook his head. "Sorry," he said, smiling at Theodora. "You'd rank high enough to satisfy our house laws, but you'd need to be Catholic, I'm afraid."

Theodora sighed theatrically. "I knew being a princess wouldn't be enough for you."

No, she'd have to be the right kind of princess, Andrea thought, and really, whoever thought Habsburgs were a good choice needed their head examined. Amedeo seemed nice enough, but he was still young, there was plenty of time for imperial eccentricities to surface.

While they pointed out a few more possible bachelors for Theodora - and Amedeo seemed to finally catch on that it wasn't a serious discussion - Andrea kept an eye on Carl Philip, who looked more and more irritated. Strange, Guillaume wasn't even badgering him right now, but was still focused on William...

Who was just shooting helpless looks at Carl Philip, and wasn't that a nice little mystery.

He kept an eye on the two of them for the rest of the evening, and had a fairly solid suspicion by the end of it. Carl Philip didn't come as much of a surprise, not when Andrea could personally vouch that he swung that way at least part of the time, but William... Still, if Guillaume had picked him as a potential target then there might be something to it. If there really was something going on... my, my. The next few years were going to be interesting.

You really could rely on the Windsors to provide entertainment.

***

The first mystery Alexandra found herself faced with as a princess was how mundane things like breakfast worked in a royal residence.

There _was_ a kitchen hidden away towards the back of the rooms that made up Harry's apartment, but a quick search of the cupboards had turned up four empty boxes of fruit loops, a tin of baked beans, two tins of tuna and a salt shaker. The fridge hadn't been an encouraging sight either, and Alex had stopped her investigation when, behind a few well-chilled bottles of vodka, she'd found a half-eaten bacon sandwich that looked like it might grow little feet next, now that it had managed a nice cover of green fur already. There was a small possibility that Harry was attempting to grow antibiotics in there, but Alex had her doubts.

She also had the sneaking suspicion that the real reason why she'd never been invited to spend a night here in Clarence House had been less a matter of propriety, and more the fact that Harry appreciated her kitchen because it contained actual food. All she discovered here was either full of alcohol, caffeine, or both, and even if she'd ever thought of Red Bull and Carlsberg as breakfast, it would be off limits now.

The logical thing to do would be to ask Harry. But he was currently happily sprawled in bed, face buried in his pillow and presumably dead to the world for a few more hours if she'd calculated the break-down rate of the alcohol in his blood correctly. Best not to count on him as a source for information unless she was willing to starve until well past lunch, and that when she'd eaten practically nothing yesterday because her nerves had taken over.

Still, Harry had to eat somewhere when he was staying here, so the matter was finding out where that might be. Time to go exploring.

It helped to know that the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall weren't in residence. Not that they weren't perfectly polite and nice to her, but nonetheless it was a lot easier to wander about Clarence House in the pants and t-shirt she'd brought as spare clothes, and which felt far too casual for the surroundings. She should have thought to bring more than just an overnight bag, but she'd been so preoccupied with the idea that within a few hours she was going to marry an actual prince that one outfit had seemed enough. Seeing as the alternative was her wedding gown with its impractical trail and its torturous shoes, Alex stuck with the shirt and pants.

When she ventured out into the hallway there was a faint scent of coffee in the air. A good sign, she thought as she sniffed appreciatively and started downstairs. At the very least, whoever was having coffee could point her in the right direction. Either that, or arrest her for trespassing; she'd been introduced to the guards, but since she herself didn't feel like she belonged here yet, they might catch up on that.

There were no signs of life on the second or the first floor, but once she reached the ground floor she spotted a maid with what looked like a tea pot on her tray, headed towards the morning room. A moment to straighten her shirt and tuck a strand of hair back behind her left ear, then Alex followed.

The morning room looked a lot more impressive in, well, the morning, than it had that first night she'd been here. There was soft sunshine coming through the high windows, the table was laid with a white tablecloth and fresh flowers stood in a vase on the sideboard.

And Prince William was seated at the far end of the table, cup of coffee in his hand and a plate of toast in front of him.

So much for being able to relax for breakfast. At least he was in shirtsleeves and didn't make her feel completely underdressed. She wasn't sure whether she'd have gone ahead if he'd been wearing a tie.

It hadn't taken Alex a lot of effort to get over the fact that Harry was a prince. He'd never behaved like one, his friends never had behaved like he was one, and when you regularly had him in your kitchen, munching cornflakes and laughing over the Calvin &amp; Hobbes strip in the paper, it was easy to forget that he was anyone but Harry. With Carl Philip it was similar - until a few weeks ago she hadn't even known he existed, and she'd never seen him do princely things until yesterday when he'd been an official representative at her wedding.

But William was definitely not just a prince but a Prince, no matter how many times Harry told her not to bother with the title, and even seeing him in a few casual situations over the past weeks hadn't done much to make Alex feel as if they were on a footing anywhere near equal. Still, he was her brother-in-law as of yesterday afternoon, and they were both living here from now on, so crossing paths with him was going to happen on a daily basis. She'd better get used to it, and fast.

"Good morning," she said. Stick to the basics and work from there.

William looked up sharply, then smiled at her. "Good morning," he returned and quickly got to his feet. "Looking for breakfast?"

Her stomach grumbled before she could say something in response.

"Here," William pulled out the chair to his right and gestured for her to take a seat. "The maids will have seen you come in, they'll bring a plate for you in a minute."

Alex sat and let him push her chair in for her. Definitely princely behaviour, and not something Harry had ever done. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he said and sat back down again too. "It's nice to have another early riser in the house, I'm usually by myself for breakfast. How are you?"

She hesitated for a moment, then opted for honesty. "A bit overwhelmed," she admitted.

He gave her a sympathetic look. "It's all been rather fast. But don't worry, you'll catch up with it soon."

Alex wasn't entirely certain what she was supposed to catch up with, but nodded dutifully nonetheless, the same way she did when Harry came up with some strange comment she'd decipher later.

A woman in a white blouse and black skirt - a maid, Alex assumed - came in, a tray in her hands. "Good morning, Your Royal Highness," she said, and it took Alex a moment to figure out she was the one addressed. A plate was put down in front of her with an assortment of breakfasty food, along with a rack of toast and a pot of what smelled like herbal tea.

Your Royal Highness, that was going to take some time to get used to. She wondered whether that was mandatory or if she could shut it up. Logically, if she _was_ a Royal Highness, then surely she could order people not to say it, only that seemed exaggerated.

Once the maid was gone again, William leaned back in his chair and picked up his coffee cup again. "They'll make a note of what you like and don't like and remember it for next time," he told her. "Normally they set out dishes for us to serve ourselves when we're all in residence, but with only Harry and me here... and you and Carl, of course, they expected us to have breakfast upstairs as usual. They do the shopping for us and then leave us to ourselves."

Alex tentatively prodded a fried mushroom. "They do? So Harry actually lives on fruit loops and energy drinks voluntarily?"

"You mean you haven't noticed that until now?" William sounded quite impressed. "Don't tell me you've managed to feed him healthy food. I tried that when we lived together during our time in Shawbury and all that happened was that he learned how to fry eggs for himself so he could avoid the vegetables."

"He must have forgotten that by now," Alex muttered, thinking of the last few kitchen disasters she'd experienced with her bo- husband, she corrected herself. "If you usually eat upstairs on such days, why are you here? Not that I mind, of course," she back-pedalled a bit when she realised how she might sound.

William turned more fully towards her. "I was hoping I'd catch you this morning, actually," he said. "To see how you're doing. I know you got thrown in at the deep end."

"And you're checking whether I'm swimming or drowning?" Alex spared a longing glance for his coffee as she had a sip of her tea. At least she could have the smell.

"You're doing fine so far," he told her. "Just don't let anyone slow you down, it's going to be easier if you keep up the momentum."

"As long as someone keeps pointing me in the right direction." The scrambled eggs weren't bad; a bit bland, perhaps, but she had the feeling that was for the same reason as she'd been served herbal tea instead of something with actual caffeine. "I'm not really sure what's supposed to happen now."

William frowned. "Hasn't anyone talked to you about that yet?"

"I think they were busy stuffing proper wedding etiquette into my brain. That one assistant... Claire?" she glanced at William and got a nod in confirmation, "said there'll be a few official appointments with Harry, but not what that's going to be about."

"Let him figure it out and follow his lead, he's supposed to know these things by now." William glanced at her tea cup, then refilled it from the pot for her. "About Harry..."

Alex met his eyes and hastily swallowed her mouthful of egg and toast. "Yes?"

He looked at her, his expression serious. "I'm aware you two haven't known each other for all that long, but you can trust him to do his best. He won't let you down, but you may sometimes have to prod him in the right direction."

She gave what she suspected was a rather un-ladylike snort before she could catch herself. "I knew that an hour after meeting him," she said, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "It's kind of you, but you don't have to convince me that he's a good person."

William looked somewhat relieved. Apparently he didn't often sing his brother's praises in front of girlfriends, and wasn't that a reassuring thing to know.

"Just let Harry do the work for you for now," he said. "He's been raised to do it, and it will give you the time to learn. They'll let you off the hook in a few weeks anyway so you can," he gestured a bit vaguely in the way Alex was coming to understand meant male interpretations of pregnancy, "have the rest you need. And there's a big distraction coming sometime soon, too, that's going to make it easier as well and take the focus away from you two."

Alex tilted her head curiously. "A big distraction?" she asked, not sure what he meant. The coming year had a few big events, or maybe it was something else entirely. So far nobody had really filled her in on what lay beyond the immediate future.

He fidgeted. Prince William of Wales, heir to the thrones of sixteen independent states of the Commonwealth, future King of England, actually fidgeted. Alex wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen him drop the teaspoon he'd been fiddling with. It clattered to the floor and he bent to retrieve it, then kept on toying with it.

"We weren't going to fill you in until after your wedding," he said slowly. "It's not that we didn't trust you, but you had enough things to handle already and so we thought it could wait."

She managed not to sigh with impatience, but had to give in to the impulse and take the spoon away from him before he drove her crazy. It earned her a startled look, but it also made him continue.

"You see, Carl and I..."

Now she did sigh as she held up her hand in interruption. "If you're going to tell me that the two of you are lovers, I already know that."

He looked positively baffled, and she remembered Harry telling her that it was supposed to be a secret. Not that this had stopped anyone from talking about it.

"How do you know about that?"

Alex shrugged and focused on spearing a mushroom with her fork so she could avoid his eyes. "Well, Harry told me. And the Duchess, and Princess Beatrice. And Carl Philip, in a way."

Had William really thought she didn't know about it yet? After she'd been so kind to provide them with a handy excuse to escape from Carl Philip's imaginary competition, she'd have expected William to work out that she'd been let in on the secret.

Maybe Harry was right in saying that his brother could, at times, be a bit oblivious when it came to really obvious things going on around him.

William pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. "So much for keeping that a secret," he said.

"I don't think anyone else has figured it out," Alex attempted to reassure him. "As long as you have some sort of explanation why Carl Philip is staying here instead of the official guest quarters like most of the others."

"Officially he's friends with Harry and me. It's probably for the best if you stick to that story too for now, that's going to keep things quiet." William shook his head and seemed to dismiss the issue, because the seriousness faded a little from his expression, but not entirely. "Will you be all right with that?" he asked. "Carl and me, I mean."

She patted her belly a little ruefully. It didn't show much yet, but there was a definite bump if you knew what you were looking at. "I'm hardly in a position to object, am I? Your partner is a man, Harry's is a pregnant Catholic with what I've seen some of the papers call a shady past. You tell me what's worse."

"Ignore them," William said firmly. "You didn't get yourself into this situation on purpose, and that's what counts here."

Her eyes narrowed in thought. She and Harry both knew it had been an accident, but she hadn't expected him to discuss that with his brother. Either that, or William was offering her a lot of trust in advance.

"Thank you," she said. "And about you and Carl Philip... I'd hardly have helped you two escape yesterday if I had any problems with it, would I?"

William grinned at her. "Point taken. And thanks for that, by the way. We owe you a favour."

She nibbled at her slice of toast, then put it down again. "You really do. You have no idea how much longer I spent talking to him after you two left. Ah... how exactly was I supposed to act around him, anyway? He didn't show up on the notes they gave me about how to speak to important people. He counts as important, right?"

"He's first in line to the throne of Luxembourg," William said, and she nodded. That much she'd known from before her time as a suddenly pregnant girlfriend of a royal prince - spend enough time in hospitals and you ended up looking at tabloids and magazines during your breaks. "But he's also our age, and that usually means fairly easy-going. And of course there's the specific family situation."

Alex cocked her head in curiosity and waved for him to go on as she had another bite of toast.

"His brother managed to do pretty much the same as Harry did with you," William explained. "With a few additional complications, actually - they had their first son present at their wedding. So Guillaume should be an easy person to deal with for you, he must have seen his sister-in-law adjusting."

She nodded. "I had the feeling he didn't mind me," she said. "But Carl Philip was a bit tense about him, so I wasn't sure."

William winced slightly. "Carl is... perhaps not the person you should ask about Guillaume," he said. "But you're a woman, you're married, so you don't have to concern yourself with those specifics."

Neither did William and Carl Philip, if she was any judge of it, because if the bizarre conversation Guillaume had attempted with the two of them was considered flirting on the continent, she didn't want to ever go there. But all boring talk of long-winded military tactics had stopped almost immediately after the two princes had left, and he'd turned perfectly charming. Looking back, she wondered what that had been about.

"I'll keep that in mind for next time," she said. "So what happens now?"

He looked at her. "You mean, now as in today, or as in from now on? You'll get to take it easy for the next day or two, we usually do after major events. And after that... you'll just have to see. I'm not the best person to talk to about what happens to a new royal wife."

"I thought that's what you've been dealing with for the past weeks?"

"It's not... Carl's not..." William trailed off. "Well, actually, you might have a point there. You're just more official than he is right now, and you'll probably get a different sort of schedule because..." Once more there was vague pregnancy gesturing, and she wondered whether the word really was that hard to say. It certainly made the men around her snap into action and be ready to do her bidding whenever she drew attention to her belly. "Count on some media exposure to get goodwill, and after that they'll leave you alone so Carl and I can go and shock the country."

Alex attempted a reassuring smile. "It won't be that bad, certainly," she said.

William didn't seem convinced. "Wait and see," he said. "Perhaps you can manage to have your baby in the middle of it and draw off some of the attention."

"Sorry I didn't factor that into my pregnancy schedule. I'll try to do better next time, but you'll have to give me a bit of advance warning, it's a long-term project." Alex had a sip of tea and made a face at the boring taste. By the time this was over she was going to be ready to commit murder for a shot of espresso.

After she'd finished her breakfast William accompanied her upstairs, another aspect of princely behaviour she was going to have to get used to. She'd never been escorted anywhere with nearly as much attention as she was getting these days, and she wasn't entirely sure whether that was normal. In her experience, women managed to get up stairs by themselves without having someone at their back to guard them against falls, but perhaps princesses were different there. She'd have to see whether she could ask someone about that. Perhaps one of the guests from yesterday; a few of the women had promised to get in touch, but at the time she'd been so tied up with nerves that she hadn't paid attention to their names.

On the second floor landing, William caught up with her in two quick steps. "What I said earlier," he began, his voice low, "I meant that. Harry is a good guy, but sometimes he doesn't see it if there's a problem of some sort, or how serious it is. So if you think there is something you need more help with than what he can give you at the time, tell me, no matter what it is. You two aren't alone in this."

Alex looked up at him and nodded. "I'll remember that," she said quietly. "Thank you."

He gave her a smile, then leaned down to kiss her cheek. "Welcome to the family."

***

Once the pleasantries and small talk were dealt with, Andrea leaned back in his chair and waited for Madeleine to get to the point. There was no way she'd come to New York just to hear his opinion on whether dark blue was an acceptable autumn colour this year. (Not that he cared, but he had a sister and a girlfriend who did, so knowing about that sort of thing was a matter of self defence.) And while he _might_ have believed that Madeleine had made the trip to do some shopping, he didn't think he was on her list of people to meet for coffee without some sort of secondary intentions.

"Well," Madeleine said, a glint in her eyes that did not bode well. "Charlotte told me that Tatiana told her that Carl hasn't told you anything. So I'll have to be the one to tell you."

Andrea blinked and hid his confusion behind his coffee cup while he attempted to untangle that statement.

"Tell me what?" he tried eventually.

Madeleine was doing her best to look cute, an expression she seemed to pull off with frightening ease. "Oh, only that Carl has been seeing Prince William of Wales for the last year or so."

That was a bit more surprising than what he'd been prepared for, even with the suspicions he'd already had.

He took another sip of his coffee to put his thoughts back together, then put down the cup. "I knew I should have placed a bet on it," he said. "I can't even imagine the odds I'd have gotten."

It earned him the rare pleasure of seeing Madeleine momentarily startled. "You knew?"

"Not in so many words, but I saw them at Harry's wedding last month." And when he'd thought about it afterwards, he'd been almost certain something had to be going on there. "I doubt anyone guessed who wasn't aware about Carl, but when you know what you're looking for..."

A year already? Considering the circumstances and the restrictions they had to face, that was more than a little impressive. Andrea didn't have to look far to see that it was hard enough to maintain a relationship when one person involved was a royal. Both of them... he had to applaud their time management skills.

"It's not official yet, is it?" he asked. He hadn't looked at the newspapers this morning, but he didn't think he could have missed something as big as that. Once the news broke that Prince William was off the eligible bachelor market, there probably would be teenage riots in the streets.

Madeleine shook her head. "No, of course not," she said. "But there'll be an announcement soon, and I thought you should know about it before hearing it on tv."

Cocking his head, Andrea looked at her. "Madeleine, I'm not going to be heartbroken over this," he said, wondering if he was reading her correctly. "Carl and I had a few very nice days together, but I've got a girlfriend and he obviously has gone steady too by now. It's not like I've been pining for him for the past two years."

She gave him a critical look, then she nodded. "Good. I'd hate to have to tell you to keep your hands off my brother."

Andrea wondered whether Charlotte was ever going to say something like that to someone about him. He didn't think so; his sister mostly seemed to expect him to sort out his own love life and that was absolutely fine by him. Then again, his sister also hadn't had an engagement broken off because her fiancé had cheated on her. If Madeleine was a bit overprotective of her brother's relationship, then nobody could really blame her for it.

"Does he know you're here?" he just had to ask. "And that you're telling me this?" And that apparently both Andrea's girlfriend and his sister already knew about it?

"Carl?" Madeleine shook her head. "Of course not. He's off to Scotland somewhere with William right now so he can have a few weeks of peace and quiet to work up the nerve and face the media. And so they've got time for a few other things, but we're all pretending we don't know it's a thinly disguised honeymoon."

That comment brought up a few images he really hadn't considered before, but a café in downtown New York with a Princess of Sweden on the stylish rattan chair opposite from him really wasn't the place to speculate on what those two might get up to in bed. Still, having intimate knowledge about what Carl was like made it rather difficult not to wonder how that worked out with William now. Not that Andrea had ever thought of him in that light, but he could hardly fault Carl for bad taste. Aside from the whole insanity of falling for another prince, and a heir to a throne at that.

Andrea wondered whether he should have imparted that particular piece of wisdom as well two years ago, but he'd thought Carl would figure that out for himself. He really didn't envy him the complications this relationship was going to cause, even though he had to admit some curiosity about how the media were going to spin it. Bad, because an evil Swede had turned the British heir gay? Or the other way around? Good, because now women could console themselves that they'd never had a chance anyway and at least no-one else was going to be princess instead?

"Have they figured out yet that they'll end up married?" he asked. With a girlfriend either of them could have backed down, but once this got out there was no way they'd manage to shrug it off. If they really were determined enough to go that far...

Madeleine shrugged. "You know that, I know that, but whether it's occurred to Carl... someone's going to have to mention it to him at some point, I think he may still be in blissful denial about it."

"But this really is serious?"

She gave him a long look that held a good amount of incredulity. "They're going to tell the _press_," she said simply, and that really was a convincing argument.

He toasted her with the last of his coffee and gave a self-depreciating smile. "Point taken," he conceded. "How did they get together, anyway? I didn't think Carl even knew William."

"Vicky's wedding, if you can believe it." Madeleine toyed with her coffee cup, then set it down on the saucer. "And if you want to have details then you'll have to ask the two of them. I'm not going to tell you what Carl claims to have done there, because there are some things about my brother I prefer not to think about."

Which didn't leave all that much to the imagination, when it came down to it. Who'd been the one to initiate this, Carl or William? Carl, Andrea decided after a moment, remembering how the two of them had started off. William surely was far too well-mannered, and whether the idea would even have crossed his mind... And no, this really was not the time to speculate about this.

"You're not going to cause them any trouble, are you?" Madeleine's question interrupted his thoughts.

He met her eyes. "Why would I?" he asked. "Like I said, I've got Tatiana and there's no way I'll break that. Carl and I... those were specific circumstances that aren't going to repeat themselves. If he's happy with William, then I wish him only the best. He's going to need it."

"That's why I'm asking." Madeleine was still watching him, and he wondered what she was seeing. "They don't need any more problems than what they'll already have to deal with."

"So... let me get this straight. You came all the way here just to make sure I no longer have any designs on your brother?"

She gave him that sweet little smile he was learning to dread. "Sometimes," she said, "it pays to be thorough."

***

When you were a prince of royal blood, bravery was supposed to come with the job. You were supposed to hunt down your enemies, stand tall in the face of danger, and never, ever back down.

Harry suspected that whoever had come up with such chivalrous ideas hadn't taken his wife into account.

"Are you sure you don't need me to do anything?"

Alex, who'd turned rather visibly pregnant over the past two weeks (something he still was adjusting to) gave him the sort of exasperated glare he'd received a lot recently.

"I'm fine," she grumbled, "I'm absolutely fine, and I'll be even better if I have some peace and quiet so I can actually get some things done."

"But what if..."

Her raised hand interrupted him. "Harry, out. Seriously. Find something to do for the day."

Normally he'd have deliberately dug in his heels at this point, just to be contrary and to see what happened, but something about his wife's voice made him back down. He wasn't supposed to aggravate her - not that he'd even have dreamed to do so in any case, he wasn't a heartless idiot - and so he tended to do what he was told these days.

"You really are sure?" he asked once more while she was slowly backing him out the door.

Alex nodded firmly. "I'll be fine," she repeated. "There are plenty of people around if I need someone to fuss about me."

"I'd rather fuss myself," he said, and it earned him a smile and a kiss on the cheek.

"You can fuss about me all you want, just... later. Right now I'm feeling over-fussed."

Hands on her waist, he looked her in the eye. "You'll call if you need something?"

"I promise." She smiled at him and he just had to lean down and kiss her, but before he could try and make it interesting enough to change her mind, she pulled back and gave him a gentle shove. "Off with you," she said, and before he could attempt one last protest, she'd shut the door in his face.

So much for that.

He waited for a moment, just in case, but when the door showed no signs of impending opening he padded over to the staircase, paused briefly and was about to head upstairs to see whether Wills might offer him asylum when he heard the door on the third floor fall closed. A few seconds later Carl came into view, a small travel bag in one hand and his keys in the other.

"Hey Harry," he said as he slid the keys into his coat pocket. "Having a good day?"

Harry shrugged. "Alex says I'm supposed to, so I'd better. You're off already?"

"Yes, for the weekend. Oh, can you do me a favour and tell Wills I had to leave earlier? He's already got his mobile turned off so I can't reach him."

Nodding, Harry frowned. "Sure, but I thought he was going with you? He said something about that yesterday."

Carl shook his head. "He had to go be royalty for today," he said, regret plain in his voice. "And I can't wait or I'll miss the training day. It's a shame, we'd have had a weekend out in the open without too much attention, but I guess it just wasn't meant to work out this time."

Harry gave him a sympathetic smile. He might have to deal with a rather unexpected and pregnant - equally unexpectedly - wife and all the complications that brought for their relationship, but at least the dust was already starting to settle around them. Wills and Carl still were in the phase where getting into a car together was considered front page news.

"Better luck next time, then?" he said.

"Yes, but it really would have been nice to have him there." Carl adjusted his grip on the bag's handles. "It's the season finale, I could have gotten him to watch one more race and then spent the winter convincing him it's perfectly safe. He still doesn't believe me about that."

A thought crossed Harry's mind. "You need anyone to cheer you on?" he asked. Alex and Wills both had dropped hints - more heavily by the day - that it would be good for him to get to know Carl a little better under the changed circumstances, and this seemed like a prime opportunity to him.

Carl shot him a quizzical look.

"Alex told me to get out of the house for today," Harry explained. "She probably didn't mean I had to leave the country, but... you've got airports, right? So I'd be back by tonight?"

Carl laughed. "Yes, we've got airports, and getting you back wouldn't be a problem. And I've even got a spare plane ticket now that Wills isn't going."

Harry clapped his hands. "Perfect," he said. "Let me just grab a coat."

A good hour later saw them on a plane to Malmö (not a town Harry had ever expected to visit, but with the new Swedish family connections, looking at a map might be a good idea sometime soon) and before noon they arrived at Mantorp - wherever _that_ was, aside from somewhere in Sweden.

Fortunately for Harry, Carl turned out to be fairly easy to get along with even when Wills wasn't there to mediate and play common denominator. Harry had the impression that he couldn't quite figure out at first why he'd acquired an English companion for the trip, but the puzzled looks stopped fairly quickly, only to turn into looks of exasperation once they reached the track and Harry met Carl's team.

"Duke of Vroomland?" he managed once he had his breath back again from laughter. "Seriously?"

His hands full with his racing overalls and helmet, Carl glowered at him - not that he had anything on Alex in that department - then turned to face his team. "If any of you tell him any more embarrassing things..."

"You'll what?" one of the mechanics shot back cheerfully. "Do your own oil change?"

Carl heaved a sigh, rolled his eyes and vanished in the team's trailer to change before anyone could say something else.

The team was surprisingly easygoing. Maybe it came from having a prince of their own for a few years now, but they weren't paying Harry more attention than he'd have expected for any friend of a team member. There were a few curious looks but nothing more, and within minutes he'd been roped into helping out with the wonky radio equipment once it was discovered that he knew a little about that from his army training.

"You've told them you're a guest here and not an apprentice mechanic, right?" Carl, actually looking like a proper racing driver now in his overalls, came over to collect his headset.

Harry surfaced from underneath the equipment table, transceiver cable in one hand, cinch plug in the other. "Sure, sure," he muttered and went in search of an interlinkage piece.

"He's William's brother, that's not a guest," Johan the techie - as opposed to Johan the mechanic, Johan the other mechanic and Johannes the clipboard guy, and Harry was just going to call everyone Johan now since chances were good he'd be right - fiddled with Carl's helmet for a bit, then handed it back. "You go out and do some laps, we'll have fun here. Harry, you ever get tired of the waving and the ribbon cutting and want a proper side job, give me a call."

Carl looked at him, then back at Harry. "I'm not taking the blame if they turn you into a mechanic, just so you know," he said, putting on his helmet. "Johan, anything special you want me to do in the first batch?"

"Just give us a few fast laps, that'll do it for the first set so we can get the telemetry benchmarks."

The next hour passed in a quick blur of lap commentary in Swedish, occasional rounds of applause when one of the drivers got a good time, and plenty of opportunities for Harry to wonder whether a racing license might have been a good idea after all. Not that he'd ever seriously consider it now, not with Alex to think of - and just when he'd gone so domestic, he had no idea - but a few years ago this could have been absolutely awesome. There'd have been him, and that Thurn and Taxis prince, and Carl of course, and surely they could have found a few more royals to come and play and turn it into sort of special event. At least the Monegasque guys had to be in favour.

"Don't mention that to Andrea," Carl said a little later, once Harry had an opportunity to pitch the idea to him. "He's from Monaco, sure, but I've got it on good authority that he occasionally fuels petrol cars with diesel. You don't want him near anything more complicated than a Mini." He considered. "And with his height, you don't want him _in_ a Mini either. Best keep that man away from cars altogether, he can't even do a three-point turn."

"So there's no chance of us starting a racing series?"

"No," Carl said. "Too late for that, you'll have to wait and see what the next generation gets up to. I heard Joachim," he saw the momentary confusion on Harry's face, "from Denmark, the younger one, is letting his boys drive go-carts, maybe they'll end up going higher. But for us... too late."

Harry shrugged. "I may have to become a mechanic after all in that case. They'd hide another prince here, right?"

They were sitting on the pit lane wall, watching as the next group of drivers did their practice laps, and Harry was having one of those rare moments in his life when he was out in the semi-public and yet nobody was bothering him with silly questions or trying to take his photograph. He was starting to have a fairly good idea why Carl was willing to let companies place sponsorship stickers on his head and arse; it seemed like a small price to pay for this sort of freedom.

A car shot past them, and Carl leaned forward to see the lap time on the display further down the pit lane. "It's my fourth year as a driver, everyone's used to it. It's taken some effort but by now I'm just one of the guys, with no special considerations or allowances."

Given that earlier Harry had seen him get dragged out of the car and thrown over the shoulder of a huge Scandinavian mechanic for a celebratory dance of a good qualifying position, he had to agree. In his experience, people didn't normally do that sort of thing to royalty. Not if they were still worried that a crown might fall off due to disrespectful handling.

"And they don't care that you and Wills..." he asked.

"That me and Wills what?" Carl shot back in return, an edge to his voice that held a clear warning. After seeing the media circus around the two of them, Harry didn't think he'd blame him.

"Got together," he said, reaching for the most harmless term he could think of. It wasn't as if he voluntarily wanted to think of his brother in that sort of context any more than he had to.

A careful look, then Carl shrugged. "The team actually had a betting pool going on whether we'd come out, and that since the last Värmland trip in late winter. Seems they overheard a few things when Wills and I were talking and I thought I had the headset turned off."

"And the... " A ridiculously neon orange Porsche shot by and the engine drowned out all other noise for a moment. "And everyone else?"

"They sold a few hundred tickets extra for the races after we announced it, but I suspect that was because the fans hoped to see Wills. Me, I'm really not that interesting, on the track and off it." He craned his neck to see another lap time, then said something in Swedish that sounded highly unflattering. "Half the time they seemed to forget I existed; highly practical, that was."

"I thought thousands of girls started doing agriculture studies once you picked that up?"

Carl grinned. "And they ran away screaming when they were faced with the back end of a cow for the first time."

"Yeah, well, women," Harry said. "Show them some barnyard animals that aren't horses and they'll do weird things. Alex still isn't over the incident with the chicken." He heard a noise that sounded suspiciously like a suppressed laugh. "Told you about it, did she?"

"She may have." Carl was visibly struggling to keep his face straight. "Remind me to tell you about Madde and the frog one day. But really, Alex says she's used to the chicken by now."

"It's not like I keep her in the house," Harry grumbled. Ethel had a very nice coop out in the little back garden of Clarence House, and the cook had mentioned something about getting a few more chickens for company. "Why's Alex telling you about my hen, anyway?"

Carl shrugged. "No particular reason, really, it just came up." He paused. "Does it bother you?"

"It's a bit weird to see Alex run off to you whenever she needs to vent," Harry admitted.

"Same as Wills does with you," Carl said. "I'm just the easiest option for her. You're her husband, so you're out, and she's still a bit awe-struck where Wills is concerned. I'm a convenient guy who's around often enough, who's got two sisters and has been raised with what they'd call proper respect for women."

Harry looked at him, eyebrow raised. "Meaning you ask 'how high' when they tell you to jump?"

"According to Madde, that's the trick."

So far Harry hadn't had much to do with Carl's younger sister since the holiday in Sweden last winter, and that might just have been for the best. He'd have to take particular care that she never crossed paths with Alex, or the results might get ugly. For him, at least.

A little later Carl had to go back and do another few laps, and Harry got to play with the mechanics a little more before the team packed up for the day. It was a good thing he'd promised Alex that he'd be back that night, or it would have been far too tempting to hang around and go back to London with Carl by the end of the weekend. That the racing season was coming to an end already was a major disappointment; come spring he'd have to convince Wills that it really was only good form to accompany his lover, and even better form to let Harry come along for reasons of safety. Entertainment. Distraction from watching Carl brush by tyre walls at a hundred miles an hour. Whatever.

There was still light coming from the windows of his apartment when the car pulled up in front of Clarence House late that evening and his security guard dropped him off.

"Hey," he said when he poked his head through the door and spotted Alex on the sofa, all safe and sound and with a book in hand. "Am I allowed to come in again?"

She gave him a little smile. "Only if you come over here," she said, putting the book aside. "Sorry if I was a bit cranky this morning, but I really needed the time to myself."

He did as he was told - and that was something he still had to get used to - and leaned down towards her, his hands braced against the back rest of the sofa on each side of her. "Don't worry, as long as you let me back in again."

"Did you have a good day?" Alex slid her hand to the nape of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss, then withdrew, a frown on her face. "Why do you smell like a petrol station?" she asked and let go of him to look at her hand as she rubbed her fingers together. "And is that engine oil in your hair?"

Harry gave her a crooked grin. "Could be?"

She looked him in the eye. "Do I want to know what you've been up to?"

"It was absolutely harmless. Ask Carl, he was there all the time." If knowing about that was always going to make her relax like this, he'd have to start taking Carl and Wills along for his escapades more often.

Alex watched him for a moment longer, then shook her head. "Boys," she muttered.

***

When royal guests were in residence, the kitchen staff at Drottningholm always tried to outdo themselves when it came to provide food to prevent homesickness. This time was no exception; the side table was covered in dishes designed to make their British guest feel right at home.

Her Royal Highness Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, Duchess of Västergötland, cautiously picked up the spoon from the serving dish in front of her, then turned it over. Baked beans dripped down with a dull plopp.

Small wonder the British had created an empire, they must have been desperate in their search for proper food. At least they were aware of things like toast, or she'd have to make certain Carl Philip had access to actual food and not this... stuff. For all that he liked the British in general - and one Brit in particular - there was no way he could gone native enough to _enjoy_ this glop.

Wrinkling her nose at the selection - how anyone could eat a full fry-up for breakfast was a mystery for the ages - she assembled her usual cereals and her coffee, then sat down at the table for a quick meal. She'd have to relieve Daniel from babysitting duty soon, but for now she could just have a few minutes of peace and quiet before everybody else woke up.

"Good morning," someone said from the direction of the door behind her. "I didn't think anyone else would be up already."

It figured that William had to be an early riser too, she thought as she turned around and gave him a smile in greeting.

"Good morning," she returned. "Carl is still asleep?"

William shot her a surprised look. "You mean there are times when he actually wakes up before eight if he doesn't have to?"

"Not that I remember," she had to concede. She watched him pour a cup of coffee, then said, "it's nice of you to let him sleep in."

"Why wouldn't I?" He sat down on the chair opposite from her with his breakfast. "We've got nothing planned until lunch today, so he might as well stay in bed. That way at least one of us gets some rest."

"Too used to early mornings?" she asked absently, picking up her spoon. The cornflakes had become soggy by now, but that was part of the fun.

He shrugged. "I probably don't have to tell you of all people anything about early morning appointments," he said as he buttered his toast. "I'll never figure out why everybody seems to want to get things done at sunrise when there's a whole day to work with."

They chatted a little more while they finished breakfast, just idle small talk. William and Carl would be here for a whole week yet, there was plenty of time to speak of all important matters now that her brother had brought his lover back to Sweden for the first official visit.

One thing, however, Victoria wanted to set straight right from the start, so she turned to William as he politely accompanied her to the door. "If you ever hurt my little brother," she said sweetly, "I'll make you regret it. You'd better keep in mind that one day I'll have an army at my disposal."

***

Turning into a princess wasn't quite happening the way Alexandra had imagined it when she was eight.

First of all, she'd assumed she'd be Princess Alexandra, not Princess Henry, but fortunately that particular style of address was used rarely enough that she didn't have to get used to it. 'Duchess of Sussex' seemed to be what the media preferred, along with the occasional Princess Alex, and she expected they'd settle on the one or the other eventually. Until then, she'd just listen to whatever seemed to be yelled in her direction.

She also hadn't imagined she'd become princess less by sweeping a prince off his feet thanks to true love at first sight, but rather by virtue of sweeping a prince off his feet with her signature hip swing and a later accident with a condom. As she was learning, weird things like that tended to happen around Harry a lot.

It took a few weeks to get used to the idea that nobody blamed her for what had happened, and that even more, they were all looking at her with the faint hope that she'd provide a calming influence on Harry. The fact that they were looking at a former exotic dancer, pregnant out of wedlock and with the wrong religious faith told her a lot about how desperate they were getting where that was concerned. Even the Queen had been nice to her about it all, and now did scary things like invite her for tea to get to know her better.

Alex had the sneaking suspicion that everyone was still trying to make up their minds whether she was better or worse news compared to Carl Philip. A gay prince or a playboy prince, whose partner was preferable? There probably were polls in the newspapers on that issue. He had the right breeding and upbringing, she had a uterus, and between them they could have made up one perfectly acceptable princess for either William or Harry. Fortunately they got along well; the staff even made him sit in on some of her princess classes these days so he'd get up to date on the British peerage along with her.

There were only a few public appearances scheduled for her in the first few months. The idea, as far as the Clarence House staff was concerned, was to get the public used to seeing her, and her used to being princess-like in public, and capitalise a bit on the pregnancy at the same time. Pregnant princesses, she was informed, were a great asset to the prince involved because it made him look nice and respectable.

Alex had to agree that Harry could probably use that, and so she found herself in a horse-drawn carriage with the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duke of Värmland, doing her best to look representative for the wedding of a royal cousin. The whole arrangement had been a bit odd; it should have been Harry and her in a carriage with William and Carl Philip, but that hadn't worked for some reason to do with Prince Andrew. After a few shuffles and rearrangements, the four Windsor men had been stuffed into one carriage and the wives - loosely speaking - got to follow behind.

"I'm not really sure about this whole carriage thing," she said as they were driven along.

"Don't worry, dear, you'll get used to it." Camilla patted her knee reassuringly. She'd been doing that a lot lately, ever since protocol kept throwing them together for events like this. Alex wasn't quite certain what to make of it, but right now she was taking every bit of sympathy she could get. "Or is it making you queasy? We can probably slow down a little in that case."

"No, that's okay, I'm just... not really sure how to get out of here again." It was the first time since her own wedding that she'd been stuffed into a full-blown gown, and there was a lot more fabric to manoeuvre around with than she was used to. With the addition of her centre of gravity being fairly far off by now from where it was supposed to be, a very deep seat and narrow little carriage steps, she had the feeling that chances she'd end up taking a nosedive weren't too small.

"They didn't teach you this in princess class?" Carl Philip asked.

She scowled at him. "You were there, you'd have noticed if they had."

"I don't think they'd have included me in anything involving how to get out of a carriage in a dress."

"Very funny. Seriously, how do I get out of here? We've still got a bit to go, right?"

"Why, do you want to stop and practise?"

If anyone had told her two months ago that she'd be kicking the ankle of Prince Carl Philip of Sweden, she'd have declared them insane. Now, she was just pleased the carriage was small enough for him to be within easy reach.

"It's not difficult," Camilla assured her. "Just make certain you aren't stepping on your dress, that way you'll either trip or rip something embarrassing. But that's all there is to it."

She sighed and wished Harry would be waiting for her at the end of the ride, but they were supposed to meet up again a little later to avoid creating a crowd. Royal weddings, she was learning, were planned with the sort of precision usually only seen in major military operations.

"There really isn't anything special about it," Carl Philip told her. "Simply wait until the footman opens the door, then you let the highest-ranking person get out first, that's Camilla in our case. I'm not here in an official capacity so you outrank me under the circumstances, and besides you're a woman and it would be impolite if I made you wait. Madde always got out before me even though she's the younger one and behind me in protocol."

"I know that," Alex said a little plaintively, arms crossed defensively in front of her belly. "What I don't know is how to get out without falling flat on my nose."

She should have claimed that she wasn't feeling well, then she could have stayed at Clarence House or maybe only joined the reception afterwards. Perhaps it brought good publicity, but she was beginning to be honestly frightened by the situation.

Why had she ever let Harry talk her into this?

"You'll manage, dear," Camilla told her, rummaging in her purse and offering her a little chocolate bar. "Have that, it will help with the nerves. Carl Philip will get out first and make sure you don't take a fall, it's as easy as that."

In hindsight she really shouldn't have worried so much. Camilla and Carl Philip got her out of the carriage without a hitch or any embarrassing thing for the photographers to see, and stayed with her until she was safely delivered to Harry's side again.

"You're not leaving me alone for the ride back," she told her husband, not bothering for the moment to hide the irritation from her voice. "This wasn't fun, I'm not doing that by myself again."

Harry blinked at her. "Of course, honey," he managed after a moment. "Whatever you say."

He stuck to her side for the rest of the wedding, never more than a few steps away even when she had to sit down for a little while and some of her new female relatives with babies kept her company. Harry wasn't quite participating in the babytalk, and he had a slightly glazed look in his eyes, but he was staying.

"Good for you, girl," one of the cousins told her a little later. "Get him trained early, or you won't stand a chance."

***

Wills had the right idea of it, Harry thought as he wandered down the stairs in the dark to see whether the main kitchen had any honey left. Go gay, and you won't find yourself placating a heavily pregnant wife who's just found out that you had the last of the honey for breakfast, and that there _is nothing left when she wants it for her cup of warm milk_. Judging by the expression on her face, murders had been committed for less.

Compared to what his friends had warned him about in regard to expecting mothers, she was still fairly harmless. But of course he couldn't be sure just how much of their experience was based on reality and how much came from sitcoms - as far as he could remember, none of them were getting anywhere close to a paternity. As far as they knew, at least. If Alex hadn't been upfront with him about this, then he might not have known either, especially not if they hadn't continued their relationship.

But they were here now, and he knew she'd been a good thing to happen to him. When she didn't glower at him for getting her into her current condition, at least, which was getting rarer by the day. Harry was glad human pregnancies only lasted nine months; any longer and he'd begin to fear for his life.

A bit of that fear crept in when he discovered that if there was honey left in the main kitchen, he couldn't find it.

Drastic situations called for drastic measures. He was fairly sure he'd heard sounds from William's apartment above his own earlier, so his brother was probably still awake. And he was a fan of tea, so honey might be had.

With that new prospect, Harry went back upstairs and just hoped that Wills and Carl weren't in the middle of sex again. He'd walked in on them three times by now, and it really was getting too much. Some things you simply didn't need to know about your brother. Not that he wasn't happy for Wills for having a healthy relationship, but there was such a thing as too much information, especially when it came in visual form.

It was quite a relief to have a knock at the door answered by a mostly dressed Wills, who only looked a little rumpled.

"Harry? Is everything all right?"

"Yes, sure," Harry said brightly.

Wills gave him a knowing look. "On a mission from God again, are you?"

"Maybe?" It wasn't as if he showed up at his brother's doorstep on a daily basis, but it was probably a bit hard not to notice by now that Alex had her share of grumpy days at the moment.

"Wills? Oh, hey Harry." Carl padded over to join them, in the same slightly unbuttoned state as Wills. Harry was beginning to suspect he'd narrowly escaped another detailed insight into their relationship. "Is Alex sending you on errands again?"

Harry sighed. "I've been told not to come back before I haven't found honey for her," he said. "There's sugar, but apparently that's not the same."

"Let me see if we've got some," Carl offered. "I think I saw a jar this morning."

Harry watched him disappear in the kitchen, then turned to face Wills. "Sorry to bother you two at this time," he said, and got a snort of amusement in response.

"Developing tact, are we?" Wills reached out to ruffle his hair, and Harry gave an indignant squeak as he ducked away. "You know you can always come here if you need something, right?" he asked, and Harry knew he wasn't talking about missing groceries.

"I know," he said quietly, and couldn't help smiling when Wills patted his shoulder. "Thanks."

Carl came back then, honey in hand. "Shall I take this down to Alex?" he asked after a look at them.

"Would you mind? She's been in a bit of a mood tonight, and she's always better when she's ranted about me for a bit." If she could let off some steam now, it would be better for everyone involved.

A quick look passed between Wills and Carl. "I'll go see if she wants company," Carl said; a peck to William's cheek and he was gone. Harry listened to his footsteps as he went down the stairs, then followed Wills inside the apartment his brother used these days.

Two minutes later he was installed on William's couch, beer in hand, and faced with an older brother who seemed to waffle between amusement and faint concern.

"It's nice that Alex and Carl are getting along," he said, a bit at a loss for what to talk about. He and Wills had always been able to talk, they just tended to do it in the manly we-don't-need-to-talk way.

Wills sat down too, long legs stretched out comfortably. "He's got two sisters, that's more training on how to behave around female relatives than you and I ever got. And he and Alex are in a sort of similar situation, so they're sticking together."

"Sort of similar," Harry said after a swig of his beer. "Aside from Alex being pregnant and all that."

"It's not like it's going to last forever. A few more weeks, then you two've come through."

Harry sighed. "And get a baby instead, that's a whole different can of worms right there. Ah, damn it Wills, this wasn't supposed to happen like that."

"You and Alex aren't having problems, are you?"

"Aside from her looking at me like she wants to strangle me whenever she can't get up from the sofa by herself, you mean?" He shrugged. "It's just too fast, that's the thing. I like her, I really do, and I know she likes me too when she doesn't want to bash my brains out, but... we didn't have all that much choice about it, did we?"

Setting his beer aside, Wills shifted so he sat a bit straighter. "What's Alex saying about this?" he asked.

"I can't talk to her about it now, can I? She's got enough to worry about with the pregnancy and with having to fit in."

He knew he and Alex needed to figure out what the future was going to look like, but this wasn't the time for it. Later, though, there would have to be talks - was she going to finish her studies? Should they find someplace else to live? Were they - and the thought alone made Harry feel queasy - going to have another child after this one?

Well, better leave that last question for at least a year or two.

"What worries me is that I don't know if we'd have stayed together if this all hadn't happened," he said, and saw William's eyes narrow with concern. "It's just, circumstances, you know? I met her, I liked her, she was a nice, fun girl to be around with, and it felt... good to be with her. But I never thought about whether that was going to last. And then we were married before I could even blink."

Wills sighed softly. "You got yourself into a mess, Harry, but you're making the best of it. Alex is a good girl, and I think she's got what it takes to last in this madhouse. And in case you haven't noticed that yet, she married you when she could have said no."

"With all the pressure on us? I'm not sure she'd have dared," Harry said. "Gran was picking out wedding dates before she'd even seen Alex."

"Because she already had the calendar out from looking at dates for Carl and me." Wills gave him a little smile. "Trust me, Alex might not have said no that first day, but she had plenty of opportunities in the weeks before the wedding and she didn't take them. And she doesn't strike me as the kind of girl who's too shy to do what she thinks is right."

Harry could only hope Wills had the measure of her. He wanted... no, he needed Alex to be happy with this, because it was his responsibility that things were the way they were. It was a lot easier to be careless when you yourself were the only one it touched. With Alex he needed to get it right, simply because she deserved that much.

"Harry, you'll manage, and if you ever need help you know you can count on me." Wills leaned in to pat his shoulder comfortingly, and Harry just gave him a grateful smile rather than risk getting even more maudlin' over this. "And now get your arse back downstairs before your wife learns how to swear at you in Swedish."

***

Andrea drew up his knees to bring his toes into the safety of the umbrella's shadow. Being born with a pale complexion had its drawbacks when you were heir to a Mediterranean principality, especially when paired with the benefit of having a private stretch of beach with a guarantee of over two hundred cloudless days a year.

He spared a grateful thought to those who'd invented sunscreen and parasols, put on his shades and made himself comfortable on the lounge chair for a few peaceful hours of sun, sand and sea.

Thirty minutes later he'd just reached that perfectly zen mindset of listening to little waves while watching a lazy seagull on the little rocky outcrop down in the water.

Perfection, alas, wasn't to last. Interruption arrived in the form of a newspaper that was rudely dropped on his chest with no consideration whatsoever to its impact on meditation. He glanced up at Tatiana and raised an eyebrow at her that was to tell her that yes, he'd noticed she was here and he was listening with rapt attention to whatever she might say now despite the absolutely horrifying abuse she was inflicting on him.

Tatiana looked back with an expression that said that he wasn't impressing her in any way but that she might be convinced to make it up to him later, with an additional sideways flicker of her eyes that said that his feet were catching the sun and he'd better do something about that if he didn't want them toasted.

Andrea brought up his knees a bit more and conveyed to her that he was duly grateful for the warning and that she was welcome to collect a reward later on, but that for now he wished to focus on waves and seagulls. The short and succinct reply from her was a shrug, a straightening of her sunglasses, and a towel dropped onto his legs for extra protection.

"Take a look at the paper, you'll find it amusing," she said as she settled down on the lounge chair next to him. No shade for her, of course, and wasn't it unfair that she'd just turn a lovely combination of bronze and tan lines no matter how much sun she caught.

Andrea spared the seagull another glance, then picked up the paper, now a little blotchy from the sunscreen on his skin. Not blotchy enough, however, to hide the fact that it was the _Mail_ or that the headline read "Sensitive Royal Backside - Are Wills and Carl Philip doing it dry?"

"I should hope not," he muttered, scanning the article. The usual combination of gossip, speculation and facts twisted beyond recognition - not that this came as a surprise - along with the cornerstone dates of the relationship. As if anyone could have missed the grand moment of two royal princes coming out of the closet together and announcing their relationship. It had been almost a year now and American newsreaders still got that slightly panicked look on their faces whenever they had something related to the British monarchy to report.

Tatiana looked up at the rustle of paper. "They do make a cute couple," she remarked. "I hope there'll be a wedding invitation."

Andrea glanced at her over the rim of his sunglasses. "I'm not sure they'll necessarily want Carl's... " he gestured vaguely, looking for the right word to describe himself and failing, "well, me there. That might be a complication they'd rather avoid." And that was assuming that Carl had ever mentioned their little weekend three years - god, did the time fly - ago. If he hadn't, Andrea was hardly going to blame him; not everyone could have a partner quite as open-minded as Tatiana. William didn't strike him as particularly jealous, but there were moments when discretion was the better part of valour indeed.

"You're his friend, of course Carl is not going to insist you stay away." Tatiana arranged herself a bit better, and Andrea watched appreciatively. "It's not as if you've made any overtures towards him since then."

There was a hint of something in her voice that told him he'd better not done so.

"I haven't," he said. "And I wouldn't have, even if he'd been here for any of the F1 weekends since then. Which he, in turn, hasn't, and I can't help but wonder about that. And we haven't crossed paths on any official events either except for Harry's wedding, and we didn't talk there."

Tatiana muttered something unintelligible, then turned her head towards him. "Surely you don't think he's scared of you, do you?"

Andrea shrugged. "How would I tell?"

Another mutter that might just have been something unflattering about his gender, then, "do something revolutionary and talk to him? You did congratulate them when they went public, right?"

The seagull on the rocks suddenly gained a new level of attraction, but when it didn't do anything after he watched it for a good minute, he sighed. "Not in so many words," he admitted. "Charlotte sent a card and I signed it?"

The mutters became more pronounced and a hand was dismissively waved in his direction. "Go call the poor guy. Send him a little present or something and tell him it's nice everything's worked out for him. He probably has no idea what to expect from you right now."

"Shouldn't it be you he'd worry about?"

Tatiana gave him a stern glower. "I gave him a call just a week after your little escapade and told him that I hoped he'd enjoyed himself."

Andrea blinked. "You did?"

"Of course I did."

"What did he say?" he asked in horrified fascination.

Tatiana grinned. "Not much. It was a rather one-sided conversation we had there. Anyway, if he's concerned about someone's interpretation of events, it's not mine."

He could have argued that getting a phone call from your... fling's, for lack of a better term, girlfriend to inquire whether sexual relations had been satisfactory could count as reason for concern. But if he did, they'd just argue and if he'd learned one thing then to pick his battles carefully where Tatiana was concerned. This one simply wasn't worth it and besides, she might just have a point there.

Best do something about it, then, especially since the paper had provided him with a perfect opportunity.

"Do you mind if I leave you alone for a little while?" he asked.

In response he got a raised eyebrow, a hand waved in a shooing motion and a smile that promised interesting things for later.

One of the advantages to being the de facto heir to both the Monegasque throne and a considerable fortune was that you could usually get what you wanted without too much fuss if you made a few phone calls and threw some money at the problem at hand.

Now the question remained how to get his little present to Carl. The safe option would be via the Stockholm palace offices, of course, but the tabloid article _had_ mentioned that he would be in London for the rest of the month. London, Andrea assumed, meant Clarence House - surely even the Brits weren't stuffy enough to keep him somewhere separate.

He penned a quick note with what felt just the right amount of teasing, then, as an afterthought, added _I sincerely hope you're happy_ as a post script just in case Carl didn't quite get the implied message. A few more moments to wrap it all up, and within half an hour his gift was with a courier and on the way to London.

It only occurred to him a few hours later that he'd just sent lube and some highly personal information addressed to both Carl and William without knowing whether the latter was actually aware of their little weekend adventure.

"Well," Tatiana said serenely when he confessed that particular blunder to her that evening, "if he didn't know before, he certainly does now."

***

Madeleine thought it was very magnanimous of her to let her husband sleep rather than send him off to find a perfectly reasonable midnight snack for his pregnant wife. But he was currently asleep on the sofa, safely out of reach so he'd keep his cold to himself. A kind and thoughtful gesture, but also highly inconvenient right now. Madeleine spared his lightly snoring figure an irritated frown across the room, then climbed out of bed and went in search of food.

There was still light in the kitchen when she came around the corner, and she carefully cleared her throat before stepping through the door. If there was one thing she'd learned with the English princes around, then that you didn't come into rooms unannounced unless you wanted to risk getting an eyeful. Since one possible combination involved her brother, Madeleine preferred to rather be safe than sorry.

She wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or pleased that William was the one in the kitchen. On the one hand she could have done with some girl talk and reassurance that a need for chocolate at two in the morning was perfectly reasonable. On the other hand, Carl had been suspiciously careful when it came to not letting his lover get caught alone by either her or Vicky.

A grin on her face, Madeleine seized the opportunity.

"All alone?" she asked sweetly as she looked him up and down. Nice pyjamas, she thought. Almost fashionable, and therefore definitely not chosen by Carl. One of these days she'd have to sit down with him once again and talk about colour coordination. For someone who had a good eye for it when it came to designs, he was amazingly clueless when it came to apply the knowledge to clothing. It really had to change; she couldn't keep taking him out for shopping tours forever and have conference calls with the Clarence House staff about his wardrobe.

The look on William's face spoke of faint alarm at being confronted with her at a sudden. "Carl's in bed," he offered cautiously.

Given that her brother had spent the evening doing his best to disinfect his mouth after getting kissed by Harry and had gone through plenty of aquavit for the purpose, Madeleine would have been impressed if he'd been doing anything but sleep the sleep of the happily drunk.

"Then I'll just have to keep you company, won't I?" she said as she pulled out one of the chairs at the central table and sat down. "Would you mind checking if there's any chocolate mousse left from dinner?"

She didn't even need to pat her belly before William jumped into action. But of course, he'd experienced Alexandra's pregnancy - and wasn't she a nice girl - so he'd obviously been trained. Madeleine wholeheartedly approved.

"Why are you awake, anyway?" she asked while he was checking the fridge for her.

Surfacing again with a bowl of mousse, he shrugged. "Carl keeps muttering about Harry in his sleep, and I just got up to have some water. Ah, do you know where Victoria keeps the plates?"

Madeleine looked at the bowl, then held out her hand. "Don' t bother," she said, snapping her fingers at him. "Just find me a spoon, second drawer to your left." There were proper table manners, and there was the luxury of having mousse directly out of the bowl at two in the morning.

William passed her the requested spoon, then backed up to the counter again, which earned him points in her eyes for not attempting to escape immediately. Then again, he was British and they probably had whole books on how to behave when faced with pregnant women in other people's kitchens.

"Your brother doesn't usually go around kissing random people, does he?" she asked. "Because he'd better not try with Vicky or me."

Mm, chocolate. She'd have to try and steal Vicky's housekeeper, this stuff was just too good to pass it up.

"I don't think so," William said. "He's just... Harry. He occasionally does those things, but usually he doesn't repeat himself."

Madeleine silently awarded him a few more points for not saying anything bad about his brother, or even worse, making excuses for him. Siblings had to stick together, and it was good to know that he seemed to share thatconviction. Now they'd just have to slowly get him used to the idea that once he acquired her and Vicky as sisters-in-law, they'd be keeping a close eye on him so he behaved himself. Then again...

She tilted her head as she studied him. "Vicky already got to you?" she asked.

A little smile hushed across his face. "She may have."

"Threatened you with the army, did she?" Madeleine had another spoon of mousse. "Don't worry, she'll probably just come after you by herself and not bother with the troops."

William didn't look terribly reassured.

"Sit down, you're too tall for me to look up to you." She pointed the spoon at the chair next to her. "And stop looking like I'll bite. Carl likes you, as long as you're nice to him you're perfectly safe."

He fetched a glass of water for himself, then did as he had been told.

"Of course I'm nice to him," he said. "Why wouldn't I be? I love him."

If it hadn't been well past midnight and William hadn't looked as tired as he did, Madeleine doubted she'd have gotten that out of him. The two of them managed to share plenty of affectionate gestures even when in company, but they were still rather candid when it came to words. British understatement, she suspected.

"That's good to know; we may just let you off the hook. Now make sure he doesn't get himself into trouble, will you? He's..." she trailed off, trying to think of the best way to put it, "not always the most assertive." She and Vicky might have had something to do with that, admittedly.

William shrugged. "I don't think I need to worry about that too much," he said. "He's awfully pushy when he wants to get his way."

Madeleine stared at him. "_Carl_? You think he's _pushy_?"

There were quite a few adjectives she could have used to describe her brother. Quiet came to mind. Shy. Sweet. Pushy didn't feature anywhere on her list. You didn't grow up with her and Vicky as sisters and be anything but a nice guy, if only because they'd stepped on his toes - sometimes literally - if he'd stepped out of line.

"He's perfectly harmless," she said.

William almost choked on a mouthful of water.

Keeping an eye on him, just in case, Madeleine treated herself to another spoonful of mousse while she waited for him to return to the world of the talking and breathing.

"Admittedly, you seem to be good for him," she said once he didn't look to be in any immediate danger of suffocating anymore.

That comment earned her a wary glance, which she answered with a bright smile. Carl wouldn't appreciate it if she started interrogating his lover, she knew, even if she did it with the best sisterly intentions in mind. She'd just have to rely on Vicky's assessment of the situation and trust her to have made the right decision in being supportive. After two years of knowing about this, it was obvious that her brother wasn't going to back down, but there had been more than a few times when she'd been the one to offer a supportive shoulder and a sympathetic ear when it became too much for him. It never was about William, which was a relief, but she wasn't going to ignore the circumstances either.

"You know what would be nice?" Another of those looks from him, this time openly cautious. Not that she'd let it stop her even if she thought he meant it. "If you could come with him more often when he's here. He keeps getting that brooding expression after a day or two and it's really not a good look for him. Besides," she patted her belly, "we'll need more babysitters."

William's expression changed from wary slightly more towards amused. "The concept of nurses must be known here," he said. "I'm sure I had the word on my Swedish vocabulary list at some point."

"Why bother when you've got a perfectly serviceable brother?" she shot back. "And his lover, too? I keep seeing pictures of you with babies, and you always hold them the right way up and they don't seem to be crying much. Qualification enough if you ask me."

He was openly smiling now. "Harry managed as much, but I wouldn't have given him a baby before he had his own to practise with. Have you asked Carl what he thinks about being drafted as a nursemaid again?"

"He'll be fine with it as long as he gets the baby with a fresh diaper and is allowed to give him back later." Madeleine scooped the last bits of chocolate mousse out of the bowl and sighed softly. "It would be good if you could come here more than once a season for the weekend, though. He's enjoying it a lot more when you're with him, and doesn't feel guilty about being gone when you've got some free time."

"You could come to London, too," William said. "We've got some amenities of civilisation too, if you can believe it. We'll even import some of that weird crispy bread you keep eating if we have to."

She finished off the last of the mousse on her spoon while she sought for a diplomatic way to say that she'd love to, if he could just convince his father to stop looking at Swedish visitors like they might make off with the silverware next, after stealing his son already. Madeleine had stayed at Clarence House once, and hadn't been impressed by the frosty atmosphere at all. Hotels might be much more bothersome and lack the privacy, but at least she could have breakfast without being glowered at in that polite British way.

"That didn't turn out so well last time," she offered. At least she'd seen that her brother didn't receive that same treatment, or she might have had to kidnap him and bring him home.

William sighed. "I know. And thanks for not saying anything, by the way. But they're almost finished with renovating York House by now, you'd be right around the corner from us if we put you there." He winked at her. "I promise that Harry no longer has keys to that place, so you'll be safe from his affections."

She smiled at him in response. "In that case you'll hear from me and we'll see about dates once I'm allowed to travel again. And now help me get up, I should be on my way back to bed. Remember, if you don't make Carl happy..."

"I know. You and Vicky will come after me and tear me into pieces." William gave her a serious look as he held out his hand to pull her upright. "I don't intend to ever let anything happen to him that makes him unhappy," he said, and she didn't have any reason to think he didn't mean it.

***

One of the idiosyncrasies of Clarence House was that it was impossible to have a fight without alarming the guards, who'd been trained to come at the slightest sign of disturbance. Raised voices and slamming doors might not seem to have anything to do with an outside threat, but nobody was taking any chances.

Less than ten seconds after Harry had stalked out, the door banging shut in his wake, there was a firm knock, followed by two of the guards looking in.

Alex took a deep breath to gather herself and turned to face them. Stuart and Michael, this time, and she wondered whether they were drawing straws by now to see whose turn it was to come and check on them.

"Is everything all right, Ma'am?" Stuart asked, quickly looking around.

She nodded, shaky with the adrenaline flowing in her veins. "Yes," she said, straightening. "Harry?"

"Prince Carl Philip's got him cornered at the back door," Michael told her.

Good, that way he wouldn't rush out and do something hare-brained again just to prove whatever point he thought he needed to. Closing her eyes, Alex took another deep breath and focused on calming down.

"Alex?"

She looked up when she heard William's voice from the door. "It's fine," she said.

He frowned at her, then turned to Stuart. "I'll take it from here."

They waited until the security officers left, then Wills made her sit down on the sofa.

"You overheard, I guess," she said ruefully.

"Hard not to, once you got going." He perched on the low table before her, and she'd have shooed him off to a proper seat if she'd had the energy for it. But the rush from the fight was fading already and she couldn't take hold of it. Nor did she want to.

She sighed. "Sorry," she offered. "We didn't mean to."

William looked as though he were about to say something, but then he shook his head and seemed to change his mind. "What's this one been about?" he asked.

Alex waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "Nothing important." And nothing she particularly wanted to talk about right now, with her husband's brother no less.

"That's what Harry told me last time." William didn't look impressed at all. "Alex, whatever it is that's going on between the two of you, you need to sort it out. It's not getting better if you keep ignoring it, that much should be obvious by now."

There was no denying that he had a point, much as she'd like to ignore it. But she'd thought that so far the arguments between Harry and her had remained unnoticed by anyone except the guards. They'd been careful not to have them anywhere but in their rooms, and never when their son was here. But Camilla had taken him out to see the Queen, and once Alex and Harry had found themselves alone for the afternoon, they'd soon circled around the same issues again that had dominated their marriage for the past weeks.

"It's just... nothing, really," she tried again.

William's eyes narrowed. "Carl's taking Harry out for a round of one-on-one polo so Harry can whack a few things about and get it out of his system," he said. "You can bet that before they are back, he'll have the story out of him."

She wanted to tell him that this was none of his business, but she was just tired. Tired of being angry, tired of rehashing the same fight over and over again. Tired of seeing them both lose.

"If you'd rather do this with Bea or with Carl, that's fine," William continued. "But he said he couldn't get anything out of you the last time he tried. And since Harry doesn't talk to me either, we figured we'd switch. Alex, if we thought you were solving this by yourselves, we'd happily let you, but it really doesn't sound like you are if the slamming doors are anything to go by."

She sighed. "Sorry about that," she offered, but couldn't make herself relax.

"Never mind, that isn't the problem. But whatever is going on with you and Harry..."

"It's..."

"Nothing," William said. "I heard you. But for nothing, it seems to be pretty big."

He reached out and took her hand, and she felt herself start to shiver again.

"Alex." Wills sounded kind as he said her name, and his fingers tightened around hers.

She had to blink, because she was damned if she was going to cry over this. A stupid fight, about stupid issues, and she really was too old to be sniffling over something like that, and in front of the future King of England no less.

"What's this about?" he asked again, and did her the favour of not sounding like they were having anything but a normal conversation.

She opened her mouth to reply, but didn't know where to start. Instead, she reached for the newspaper next to her on the sofa and handed it to him. "I'm tired of hearing him promise me that he'll go out just for a drink or two, and then read about it in the papers the next day," she said quietly.

Wills leafed through the paper, then stopped when he'd found the article. She waited as he scanned it quickly. "That's... spectacular even for his standards," he said eventually. "I assume that's why I suddenly have a meeting with dad and gran tonight that wasn't on my schedule this morning."

Once more she glanced at the picture of Harry - in a mercifully still relatively dressed state in this one, though she knew there were a few images out there that left very little to the imagination anymore, almost all of them subtitled _The Full Royal Monty_ \- then took the paper from William's hands and laid it on the table, picture side down.

"I just don't get it," she said. "What makes him do it. He promises me to behave himself, and he'll be good for a few weeks, but then, out of the blue, he'll start auctioning off his underwear."

"At least he claimed it was for a good cause?" For a moment, William looked as though he were about to laugh, but he seemed to think better of it when she threw him a stony look. "He's done worse. Not recently, I know, but compared to some of the things he got up to before he married you, he's really calmed down."

Frowning, Alex wrapped her arms around herself. "Because I tell him every time he goes out," she growled. "He's almost thirty, surely he must be able to remember why it's a bad idea to do stupid, juvenile things in public!"

And he seemed to remember, too, but only the morning after. Then he'd offer contrite apologies when confronted with his behaviour, he'd be exemplary polite and well-mannered, and he'd promise never to do anything like that again.

Trouble was, Alex was finding it impossible by now to believe him. He might have the intention to behave himself, but it never lasted.

"Telling him has never worked," William said. "When he had his bad years, dad and gran tried it, but it's never been successful. I have no idea why, but it simply never ended well. The incident with the Nazi uniform was just the tip of the iceberg there, he had a few months around that time where he got up to even worse things."

"But not on purpose," Alex said.

"No, never on purpose," Wills agreed with her. "He just...stops thinking, sometimes."

"And that's what I don't get." She pinched the bridge of her nose, frustration rising once more. "It can't be that hard to remember that an improvised striptease to raise money is a terrible idea, and that the press is going to have a field day with it. They almost, _almost_ stopped the comments about how he and I met, and now he's gone and practically given them an invitation to wonder whether I taught him to strip for money."

It was William's turn to sigh in frustration. "I'd forgotten," he said quietly. "That must have hit far too close to home."

"You can say that," Alex muttered. "And then he apologises, and I know he means it, and that just makes it worse because it's such complete and utter thoughtlessness. It's the same every time, and he'll just promise me he'll never do it again, but once I turn my back he'll have one of those insane notions and go over the edge again. I'm just sick of getting asked what I think about my husband getting mind-blowingly drunk, or being caught on some equestrian memorial making lewd gestures, or dyeing his hair green on a dare. And now he's added public nudity to the list, and I've got no idea whether that's the end of it or if he'll find something even worse."

"What did he say?" William asked. "I assume that was what your fight was about."

"That he's sorry, of course, and that he just wanted to have some fun." Alex crossed her arms in front of her chest. "He's given me his word he won't do it again, but then he gets angry that I can't believe it anymore, and that I ruin his fun. What does he expect? That I'll applaud him whenever he gets up to those shenanigans? Is it really that much to ask if I want him to stop this?"

Wills hummed in agreement, or what she wanted to take as such. He was so sensible in comparison to Harry; never got himself into any trouble, never caused his lover the sorts of problems Harry dumped her in on a regular basis. Alex knew that Wills and Carl Philip had their disagreements, but she still considered them poster children for a harmonious relationship. With that much outside pressure, they probably didn't want to waste their hard-won time with too many disagreements between them. If Alex hadn't caught glimpses of their fights on occasion, she'd have thought them too balanced to be real.

Harry, on the other hand, was doing his best to keep her firmly anchored in reality and it was wearing her down.

"I'm just tired of this," she whispered.

William cleared his throat. "It's just a thought," he said, "but I've known Harry for a lot longer than you, and I've seen him do this before. He just... doesn't deal well if he can't let off steam sometimes. I think that's why military life suited him, he had to keep his discipline there, but there was plenty of time to ease up and fool around."

"He can do that now, too," Alex countered. "I know he's got a full schedule, but it's not like he doesn't get the chance to relax."

"But he's promised you not to get into trouble," Wills said. "It fits, in a way - he stays on his best behaviour and he pushes himself, because that's what you're asking of him. And then it just gets too much, and he's got all that pent-up potential for Harry-style disasters and you end up with something newsworthy on your hands. Then you get angry at him, and he tries again, and it all starts from the beginning."

Alex wanted to protest, but then took the time to consider what William was saying. She didn't think it was quite that simple, but he might have a point. At the very least, the pattern fit with what she had been seeing for months now.

"So what you're saying," she began, still sorting through this in her mind, "is that I'm holding the leash too tightly and he has to break free sometimes before he chokes?"

"Essentially, yes." Wills looked her in the eye. "I don't mean that you should stop reining him in. If you just let him run with whatever idea he gets... well, you've seen how that works out, that was what we were doing when you ended up married to him. Maybe the trick is to get him to let off steam in a more... controlled fashion."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "Volunteering, are you?" she asked. "Because I'm not sure I'm the person to take him to his boys' nights out. I'm not a boy, for one thing."

"I doubt that's an impediment." There was a little smile on William's face now that he had a solution at hand, and she tried to join him in that bit of optimism. "You have my help with this if you want it, you know that."

Alex heaved a deep sigh. "Thanks," she said. "I think I'm going to need it."

That day, she had plenty of time to think about it all. A brief interruption to rearrange her schedule aside (two new charities she and Harry were to patronise, to counter pictures of a naked prince with pictures of a dressed prince and princess petting horses taken out to pasture and opening football pitches in the countryside), nobody interrupted her all afternoon. Had Alex been in a more suspicious frame of mind, she might have wondered whether someone was running interference. But right now she just enjoyed the peace and quiet, and didn't look that gift horse in the mouth.

Wills had a point, she concluded eventually. Harry did try to be good, that couldn't be denied, and when she thought about it, there had always been that hint of tension about him the more he'd been on his best behaviour, as though he wasn't entirely comfortable about it. But she'd never thought it was more than a case of nerves in public - Carl was the same, and he never seemed to develop sudden urges to prance naked along RAF runways at night on a dare. Whatever his coping strategy was, Harry clearly didn't share it; instead he kept all that nervous energy pent up, and eventually it bubbled over.

And then the tabloids had a field day again, and Alex got to dress up in proper duchess gear, go for a photo op with old ladies and have dry crumpets for publicity and goodwill.

They'd definitely have to find a way for Harry to let off steam. If Wills was right, that might just do the trick, or at least go a long way towards it. One or two moments of outrage a year would be manageable, it was when it became a monthly occurrence that it got too much to handle. The military wasn't really an option anymore, not if she didn't want their son to grow up on an RAF base. But something closer to home could surely be found. If everything else failed, she could always ship him off to Scandinavia with Carl for his racing weekends; that way Harry came back smelling of petrol and covered in soot and grease, but the papers had stopped remarking on that a while ago.

There were options, and Alex felt a lot better once she had a tidy list of them in her mind. She'd just have to talk to Harry about it, see what he thought about it and how they'd best work that into their schedule now that they kept getting more and more public engagements. Harry might have been eliminated from the line of succession, but that didn't mean the press staff considered him unsuitable for royal appearances.

Maybe that could be reduced a little now that Princess Beatrice had finished her university degree and was ready to take on some of the work... perhaps they could even free up enough time for Alex to go back to her studies as well and take the last few exams she was still missing towards graduation. A tempting thought, tempting enough that she started making lists of things to do and calls to make as soon as people were back in their offices again tomorrow morning.

It was late when Harry came back, with helmet-dishevelled hair and still in his grass-stained white jodhpurs, his body language so obviously more at ease after an afternoon of fun that Alex found it hard to believe she'd never noticed it before.

"Hey," she said quietly, rising from the chair near the window where she'd been waiting up for him.

"Hey, too," Harry replied in the same tone of voice, holding still as she came up to him and wound her arms around his neck.

"I'm sorry," she said as she leaned close. Their fight earlier had ended in a draw, more or less, but with the day's little realisations, Alex felt it was her turn to extend the olive branch.

Harry's hands settled on her waist, heavy and comforting. "Me too. I'll not do that again. I'll be good from now on."

And here they went again, the next round in their little dance if they didn't stop it now. With a soft sigh, Alex drew back far enough to look him in the eye. "I don't want you to," she said.

He blinked in confusion. "You don't?"

"Well, I do, just... not like that. Not so good that you'll crack again sooner or later." The confusion in his eyes was growing, so she added, "Wills and I had a little discussion earlier."

"I thought those two were ganging up on us," Harry said. "It's not like Carl thinks of polo as a good way to spend a few hours, and he's crap at pretending that he enjoys himself."

"He's all right, isn't he?" Alex asked.

Harry shot her a quick grin. "Oh, he's fine, just a bruised ego and a bruised arse. The horse was getting a bit confused why her rider kept toppling off, though." He bowed his head and a light kiss was brushed against her forehead. "You know, I used to dread hearing anyone say this, but we really need to talk."

Alex nodded. "We do," she agreed and reluctantly released him. "Your brother had a few things to say that I think you should hear."

He looked sceptical at that, but allowed her to push him down into his favourite spot on the sofa. Normally she'd have insisted that he get rid of his dirty clothes first - they had someone to take care of cleaning, but that didn't mean they needed to cause extra work for the maids - but right now she figured it was better to hold her peace. Grass stains and earth crumbs on the sofa were a lot less important than sorting out their issues.

It took a while to lay out the points William had made, together with her own conclusions and additions, and she was careful to keep an eye on Harry while she did so. To hear yourself analysed like that, and by your wife and your brother no less, couldn't be easy, but to his credit Harry sat still and listened, and only interrupted to ask a question here and there or make a suggestion.

This sort of seriousness from Harry was rare, and Alex took it for what it was: a clear sign that he wasn't going to back down and try to find a way to avoid the problem. She'd seen the same mindset from him when he'd worked on his military qualifications; those had been weeks full of quizzing him on minute details he needed to know for his exams, and he'd been so exhausted at times that he'd fallen asleep as soon as he sat down somewhere. But he'd persevered, with the same determination she was seeing now.

"Let's try it," Harry finally said. "The staff's not going to be happy if we cut back on the appearances we make, but stuff them. I bet gran will back us on that, she keeps dropping those really subtle hints that Bea needs to start doing more. And if it gets you back to university, they can't say anything against it."

"And the other matter?" Alex asked.

He grinned at her, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "You're essentially saying I need to go out and have fun on a regular basis. You don't really expect me to protest, right? We'll come up with something, I'm sure." He made a face. "Plans to have fun. That really sounds a lot more boring than I ever wanted my life to be."

Alex reached for his hand. "Trust me, you're not boring," she said and was rewarded with a more genuine laugh. "I can personally vouch for that."

"That's reassuring to know." Harry's hold on her hand tightened as he drew her close and into his arms. "We'll do this?" he asked.

She met his gaze and held it. "We'll do this," she confirmed.

"Great," he said, leaning down to kiss her. Alex returned the gesture, sealing the deal between them. And then just once more, as an apology. And a third time for reassurance, and a fourth to tell him that she really appreciated the sight of him in tight riding pants. A fifth kiss, prompting him to rise from the sofa and let himself be drawn along into their bedroom, and a sixth, along with a pointed nip to the sensitive point where jaw met throat, to remind him that reconciliatory sex was supposed to be one of the positive outcomes of a fight.

There was something subtly different about making love after an argument: it all came into sharp focus, like the crisp smell of clean air after a thunderstorm. Harry had always been an attentive lover, but there was an additional level to it now in his dedication to every detail, every little touch, along with the heady awareness that he'd follow the slightest gesture and sign from her. Her palm against his chest, Alex barely had to push before he stretched out across their bed, his eyes looking up at her with that familiar, mischievous glint that had gotten her into all this in the first place.

For a scant heartbeat she simply looked, savouring the moment, then she saw a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth and followed him down, hands on his shoulders to keep him still. He complied, bright eyes watching her for cues, and she sensed the trust snap back into place between them. This was theirs, hers, and she wasn't about to let go. She felt the muscles under her fingers shift as Harry pushed up against her hands, just enough to catch her in a teasing, brushing kiss before obediently settling down once more, waiting for her next move.

Hers, she thought, and heard him laugh at the little growl that escaped her at the sight of him. Hers to love, hers to keep, and she'd be damned if she let anything break them.

***

Five years of being in a relationship with a Swede had made Michael fairly tolerant of most of that nation's little quirks. He was accepting snow as a normal part of life, he was starting to understand the finer points of ice hockey, and he was even getting adept at assembling flat-pack furniture.

Their idea of royal security, however, still wasn't something he could wrap his mind around even after all this time of seeing Säpo officers perfectly at ease in a crowd as long as their prince stayed within sight. At least they no longer were offended when the RPD staff got twitchy and took over out of simple reflex.

"So you're saying it's perfectly safe to put your royalty on a little pedestal in the middle of an open area where they're really easy to spot and aim at, and nobody is worried?" he asked for the third time that day. Together with Sven he was standing in the courtyard of Stockholm Palace at the front of a growing crowd, waiting for His Royal Highness Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland and soon a whole rat's tail of British titles, to make his scheduled public appearance for his birthday.

"Nothing's ever happened," Sven said calmly. "Well, almost nothing. In 1878 someone threw an apple at Prince Oscar, but all the records agree that he wasn't hurt."

Michael turned to look at him, considered whether to say something, then simply shook his head and watched the proceedings in the main square, where two guards were erecting a cheerfully blue pedestal that looked like it had been bought from a certain furniture store earlier that day.

"They're seriously going to just let him stand there?" It wasn't as if the British royals didn't work crowds, too, and there were plenty of meets and greets where something _could_ happen fairly easily. But at least they never went and propped them up on a stand like a prize target at a fun fair. If anyone ever suggested that they put Prince William through something similar, Michael would have their heads. It wasn't as if they were using it anyway if they could come up with something this insane.

Sven patted his shoulder. "You aren't on duty, and neither am I," he said. "Just relax and enjoy the show."

"Easier said than done," Michael muttered. At least the Swedish officers in charge were people he knew to be competent.

The ceremony was fun to watch, in a nerve-wrecking fashion, with the cheerful brass band and the prince getting to stand on his little podium while looking mildly embarrassed by all the fuss made about him. The royal family was out in full force, too, down to the nieces and nephews, and the future crown princess caused a bit of an interruption by toddling up to her uncle and attaching herself to his leg like a little limpet.

"Better tell your colleagues to keep an eye on her," Michael said as the tiny princess was collected by her grinning mother. "The first time Harry made a formal public appearance when he was two, he bit the Duke of Edinburgh's ankle."

"A sign of things to come?"

Michael nodded. "You bet. William never did anything like that, see how nicely he turned out in comparison."

Sven made the sort of noise that implied he was heroically refraining from saying any of the things on his mind. "At least he's here today and we won't have to sneak trackers into Carl Philip's cars again like on his last birthday just so we know where he disappears to."

"Ah, but it was a great trick." Michael automatically kept an eye on the prince as he did a walkabout among the crowd, and at his side Sven was doing the same. So much for not being on duty; at least they were getting really good at having more or less meaningful conversations without actually looking at each other. "It's a pity he figured it out so quickly, and that Harry gave him that bug sniffer. Those were supposed to be just for the laundry closet and not for international bug detection."

After a while the ceremony wound down again and, with a last wave to the assembled people, the royal family returned to the non-public parts of the castle for their private celebrations. It was a sign for everyone to move on, and the crowd quickly dispersed. Michael overheard a few people wonder whether they were going to see their prince again (regularly and with William in tow if the travel schedules he'd received for the coming months were any indication) and whether there really was going to be a wedding (the press staff at Clarence House and Drottningholm had been pulling massive overtime on details like how to properly word _that_ announcement, all the while keeping it under wraps so it would be a proper surprise). He didn't say anything, just smiled a little, and then a bit more widely when he felt Sven's hand brush against his own.

Two days later they were back in London and out on a bench in St James Park for their lunch break. It had been a slow day so far, but the afternoon promised to be a lot more exciting. The press office was getting ready to release the news of the engagement the following morning, and a few reporters had already figured out that something was cooking.

Right now the bets seemed to focus on Harry announcing he'd become a racing driver, which didn't come as much of a surprise after all the time he'd spent at various tracks with Carl Philip over the past years, along with a few not-so-secret spins in kart races. The _Mail_ thought that there'd be news of another royal pregnancy but couldn't quite make up its mind whether it was Princess Alexandra or Princess Eugenie, and the _Sunday Times_ columnists were preparing for the Duchess of Cornwall to admit she felt jealous of the rose bushes getting more attention from the Prince of Wales than she did.

"How crazy is this going to be once the press finds out?" Sven asked, keeping a careful eye on the ducks who were already rallying on the water before them.

Michael tossed them a bit of his sandwich. "You've been here for what, four years, and you still have to ask? Remember the day they went public? That's going to look like a walk in the park in comparison."

"With the press standing in for the evil ducks." One of the birds quacked in indignation, and Sven glared at it.

Michael threw him an amused look. "You know, when I said they go after anyone who looks like security, I didn't mean it literally." He broke off another bit of bread and watched the ducks go into battle formation as they went after it.

"I'd rather not risk it," Sven said, cradling his own sandwich protectively, presumably in case of surprise attacks. "When's the announcement?"

"Nine o'clock in the morning if everybody manages to sit still until then."

"We'd better get to work early tomorrow, then, or there's no chance we'll make it to the front door."

"I've already got orders to be here at seven at the latest. They've caught the scent by now, I bet some of them are going to be camping out in front of the gate tonight." A duck got hit by a bit of cucumber and shook its wings at Michael in a threatening fashion. "Stuart and Helen are on duty for the night, they'll terrorize them properly."

"As long as they don't teach the Säpo kids any more bad habits," Sven said, stretching his legs before him and leaning back. "I caught the new one telling the guy from the _Telegraph_ that Harry's been invited by Icelandic druids to become their king because with his hair he is considered a re-incarnation of Eric the Red."

Michael grinned. "He bought it?"

Sven sighed. "Last Saturday's edition, page four." A duck ventured out of the water and he kicked his leg to scare it back. Clearly offended by rude Swedish gestures, the duck held its ground and wiggled its tail.

"Shipping him off to Iceland might have its benefits. There must be a limit to how much trouble he can get into there." In general, Harry had calmed down a lot now that Princess Alexandra kept him on a tight rein and made sure he had plenty of opportunities to let off some steam in controlled ways. It was getting quiet enough that Paul was starting to grumble nostalgically about past calamities.

The rest of the day passed in a blur; the number of reporters and paparazzi around Clarence House was increasing by the hour, although as far as Michael could tell they were still fairly junior on the pay scale. The papers clearly didn't know what to expect, only that they didn't want to miss whatever it was even if it turned out to be nothing more interesting than the Prince of Wales taking out his wife for a fancy dinner. They were getting nervous, too; when Sven and Michael finally left for the day, they caused a minor explosion of flashlights and microphones thrust in their general direction before people recognised them and carefully backed off.

They made the most of that evening, knowing that they weren't going to get a calm hour for the foreseeable future. When your sex life tended to be influenced by that of two princes, you just had to get used to it and find time whenever possible.

***

As royal weddings went, this was one Andrea had been looking forward to for years now. All those slightly scandalised guests who couldn't do anything but smile, nod politely, and arrange themselves with the fact that the future King of England wasn't going to be nice, quiet and traditional. As if they could have expected anything else from this generation of Windsors; they were starting to be a guarantee for eccentricity. Harry had set the tone, William had followed and easily topped it, and if what Andrea was hearing about some of their cousins was true, matters were going to stay interesting for years to come.

This time the guests were not the carefully selected ones that had been present for the last Windsor wedding. There were kings and queens wherever you turned, along with their heirs apparent, and the tiaras were out in full force. TV presenters worldwide were probably having a field day just describing the dresses, since none of the female guests had to avoid upstaging the bride.

"Excuse me?"

Andrea turned around, then had to look down to meet Princess Alexandra's eyes. "Your Highness?" He was fairly sure that she was one, just not whether it was serene or royal or imperial - well, that one probably not - or something else entirely. But with this day's guest list, Highness was always a safe bet.

Princess Alexandra gave him a quick smile. "Could you do me a favour and see whether you can spot my husband somewhere? With this crowd I'll have to climb on a chair if I want to see him and that will just give a few of these ladies vapours."

Inwardly agreeing with that assessment, Andrea scanned the room and caught a spot of ginger near one of the side doors. "Over there, by that portrait of Queen Victoria," he reported. "He doesn't look like he's about to do anything bad."

The expression on Princess Alexandra's face turned amused. "It's Harry, one can never be sure. Thank you. You're Andrea, aren't you? Carl's friend? He's been mentioning you lately."

Andrea would have expected to be called Prince Albert's nephew, or Princess Caroline's son, but apparently other factors counted for more here. "Has he?" he asked, eyebrows raised. Now why would he be a topic of conversation... well, he could imagine one or two reasons, but why Carl would be discussing that with his sister-in-law was anyone's guess.

"He's been wondering whether it would be you or your sister," Princess Alexandra said, rising a little on her toes to keep an eye on her husband. "It's nice that you came, he's been fretting quite a bit over it."

Andrea was starting to recognize this sort of conversation. "Fretting," he repeated cautiously.

The princess blinked at him a lot more innocently than should be possible for someone who reputedly managed to keep Prince Harry in line. "I think he was just a little nervous about you finally meeting Wills."

If this had been Tatiana or Madeleine, Andrea would have had alarms going off in his mind. With Princess Alexandra he wasn't quite certain whether the same precautions applied to her, but he had the sneaking suspicion that he'd better play this safe. "Why would Carl be nervous?" he asked cautiously.

"You probably know that better than I do," she said with a slight tilt of her head. "Well, it was good to meet you, and thank you for your assistance. I've got to go and see that Harry doesn't get himself into anything too troublesome."

Andrea watched her go and tried to figure out what this had been about, then decided he might actually be better off not knowing. If there was anything that was expected of him, he imagined someone else would show up to poke him into action sooner rather than later. He wished Tatiana had accompanied him, but for an event as official and formal as the wedding of the future King of England - even if it was a highly unconventional ceremony - an unmarried couple simply wouldn't do when it came to representative purposes. Not that it had ever stopped his uncle, but he was Prince of Monaco, it was a lot easier for him to bend the rules.

Over the next half hour the reception turned a lot more relaxed; everybody had their first few toasts, Carl and William were mingling with the guests, and the duty-bound dancers left the floor to those who actually enjoyed it.

When he spotted William by himself for a moment, Andrea seized the opportunity and headed towards him, collecting a flute of champagne along the way. He'd have to see whether he couldn't catch Carl a little later; right now he was nowhere to be seen.

"Congratulations," he offered, and saw the split second between William automatically clinking their raised glasses together and smiling politely, and figuring out a name to go with the new face.

"Thank you." William took a small sip of champagne - understandable given that he'd be toasting potentially hundreds of people and probably wanted to still be able to find his feet by the end of the day - then looked around as if to check whether anyone was close enough to listen. Apparently not, because the next words out of his mouth were, "still got any plans on shagging my husband?"

Andrea was momentarily rendered speechless while his mind tried to catch up with this sudden turn of events and threw up potential answers. 'Actually it was the other way around' didn't seem quite appropriate, and neither did 'I never planned it, it simply seemed like fun at the time'.

He eventually came up with, "not lately, no." Then his mind processed what he'd just said and made him take a half step backwards, just in case.

But William just gave him a mild look and sipped at his champagne again. "Good," he said. "That's settled then. Enjoying the party?"

Andrea blinked, then blinked again and downed half the contents of his glass while he scrambled to find his usual ease with tricky situations of the small-talk persuasion. "Quite, yes," he ventured. "Thanks for the invitation. Oh, and congratulations from my uncle and my mother, too."

William nodded. "It's a shame they couldn't make it," he said, smiling a little. "But understandable, of course, and we expected either you or your sister would be here. It's good to finally meet you, we heirs need to stick together."

A rational statement, and Andrea seized it to regain his balance. William was right, of course; they'd probably end up being rulers at the same time, along with a number of other people assembled in this room today. And even if they were only representative figureheads, a tight network between them would be useful. Now they just needed to make sure nobody did anything to upset those connections... like being a past fling of someone else's spouse. But William still looked remarkably at ease, and Andrea gradually relaxed.

"You're right, of course," he agreed. "Perhaps we should try and institute some sort of regular meetings."

"Coffee and cake for young royals? I think some of the princesses already started that while nobody was looking." William raised his champagne flute in a toast to someone across the room, then returned his attention to Andrea. "It's a good idea, though. Not everybody always makes it to these sorts of events, and they don't happen all that often in the first place."

"I see the Spaniards couldn't make it," Andrea said, hesitating briefly before forging ahead, "and that the Grand Duke of Luxembourg decided to come in person rather than send Guillaume."

That had been one meeting a few years ago which he still wasn't sure what to make of. If what had transpired back then had been Guillaume's idea of flirting, then it was no wonder he was still single.

William looked at him speculatively, which left Andrea with the suspicion that he had some idea why Guillaume might make a tricky subject. "We were counting on the Grand Duke noticing that he was personally invited, actually... " he trailed off, the smile on his face widening.

Turning a little to follow the direction of William's gaze, Andrea saw that Carl was coming towards them. Well, that explained why William suddenly looked so happy, and Carl really was an idiot if that was a hint of nervousness on his face at spotting Andrea in conversation with his husband.

"He knows that you know about me, right?" Andrea asked under his breath.

William laughed quietly. "Of course. With your little... or not so little... present, I could hardly have missed it even if he hadn't told me then."

"Tatiana is still telling me off for that," Andrea admitted. It was turning into one of her favourite little bits to tease him with, especially now that you could hardly open a newspaper without finding yourself faced with a picture of these two.

The curious look from William probably came from wondering just what Tatiana had to do with that, but there was no way Andrea was going to explain those little details.

"All the best from her, too, by the way," he said, then raised his glass with a smile as Carl joined them. "Hi Carl. Congratulations, I'm happy for the two of you."

It was obvious from their body language just how much at ease these two were with each other. Carl's hand against William's back, a quick kiss in return... Andrea had been to a lot of weddings where the couple had not looked nearly as comfortable together.

He tried a few gently teasing comments, mostly to see how they'd take that, and got just the reply he'd been hoping for: amusement from William and a bit of banter from Carl. It put the last remnants of worry to rest that he'd had about potential tension between him and them.

If a visit to Monaco ever happened... well, that would be enjoyable simply for the company. He'd always had an easy rapport with Carl, and William seemed likable enough as well and not nearly as distant as he tended to come across in official situations. Not that these were representative, of course, Andrea knew that better than most. It was nice to encounter the William behind the public facade, and it wasn't hard to see why he and Carl had ended up here on this day. Well-met indeed.

Andrea excused himself after a few more comments - you didn't monopolise the happy couple at a wedding, that was just bad form - satisfied with the knowledge that he'd _almost_ managed to make Carl choke on his champagne at least once. It was good to know that he hadn't lost his touch there. And really, what better sign of friendship than being able to tease him like that and only receive amiable irritation in turn, along with genuine laughter from William?

He'd simply have to invite them to the next grand prix weekend, if only for the sheer fun they were bound to have. And unless things had changed drastically, at least Carl was bound to appreciate the relative safety from the media there.

From a passing waiter he collected two fresh champagne flutes, then ambled over to the corner where he'd spotted a familiar blond princess.

"Nice party, isn't it?" he said, passing one of the glasses to Theodora.

"Very nice. You have to appreciate a wedding where speculations aren't about whether the little tummy you can see on the bride is because she's pregnant or because she had a decent breakfast." Theodora touched her glass to his with a little clink, then took a sip. "I wonder what the Windsors will cook up next. First Harry, and now they manage the first gay royal wedding. Bea's got her work cut out for her if she wants to have something equally spectacular."

"I doubt she's interested," Andrea said, his eyes searching for the woman in question. For someone who'd had only a theoretical chance of ever becoming Queen of England until recently, she'd turned out quite well over the past few years. "If what Charlotte's been saying is right, she's got a nice viscount she's been seeing for a few months."

Theodora gave an appreciative and not entirely ladylike whistle. "And she's managed to avoid all press attention about that? Not bad. And a viscount, too, that's going to save her a lot of muttering over inappropriate commoners. As if she could do a lot about that now that we're losing eligible princes at an alarming rate. At least first they only dropped out one at the time, now they're doing it in pairs."

Andrea laughed. "There are still a few princes to choose from," he said. "Luxembourg alone's got three who're still available. Two even like your gender."

The comment earned him a grin from Theodora. "As Grand Duke Henri has just reminded me," she said. "He's starting to get a bit worried about marrying them all off, I think."

"So who has he decided would be perfect for you?"

Her grin widened. "Guillaume, if you can believe it."

Andrea's eyebrows rose. "Surely not... he's got to be aware that his son's not very likely to be interested in you beyond your family's art collection."

"I'd just be too much woman for the boy," Theodora sighed. "In more than one way. And besides, he's not on the market any longer anyway, but it seems his father doesn't know that yet."

"Is he?" Now this was the sort of gossip you only got to hear if you were part of the second-tier group at this sort of event. Crown princes had to make polite conversation about appropriate topics - although someone might want to mention that to William or a few people would go home slightly scandalized today - but if you were further down the line, you got to hear the interesting news.

Theodora nodded. "Keep your schedule free for next May, they're planning for a late spring wedding."

Andrea stared at her. "Guillaume? Seriously? Who? And how do you know about that?"

The smile he got was downright angelic. "Wait and see," she said. "And I know because he told me when we had lunch together a few weeks ago."

Guillaume, finally settling down too? This day was getting better and better. By now Andrea wasn't feeling much more than mildly irritated about him - it had been a few years since they had last crossed paths - and if whoever Guillaume had found was a match for him, then it was a perfect solution for everyone. After William and Carl, another gay wedding among the nobility - and Andrea didn't think it was going to be anything else, not even with the Luxembourgian predilection for getting themselves into tricky spots with unsuitable and pregnant girlfriends - would be a lot easier for everyone to handle.

"I didn't know you were spending time together," he said, passing his glass to a waiter and taking one with juice instead. The party was going to go on for a while, and getting more than a little buzzed early on wasn't an option if he wanted William and Carl to still talk to him tomorrow. Theodora, he noticed a little sourly, didn't seem to share his inhibitions. Then again, she also didn't share his low level of tolerance.

"Oh, I gave him a call after Harry's wedding and we've been meeting up occasionally since then. He's a nice guy, I really don't know why you're acting so funny around him."

Andrea considered explaining, then dismissed it. If Guillaume was getting married then it was - hopefully - going to be a moot point from now on anyway, and he felt magnanimous enough today not to add to the gossip.

"Never mind," he said. "A personal disagreement."

They fell silent as William and Carl walked by them as they headed for the main table where their closest family was seated, lost in conversation. Lost enough, in fact, that Andrea and Theodora got quite an earful.

Once they were out of earshot, Theodora turned to look at him, a little bit wide-eyed.

"Now what was _that_ about?" she asked. "Offers of sexual entertainment? Luxembourgian contenders?"

Andrea shrugged and gave her a smile he hoped looked thoroughly harmless.

"Carl's helper through his sexual identity crisis?" Theodora continued, eyes narrowed as she looked at him. "One _might_ almost think..."

He smirked and clinked his glass against hers once more with as much nonchalance as he could muster. "Leave it, my dear, at least for today. You can always go and ask them about this once they're back from their honeymoon. At the very least it should teach them about taking care they're not overheard."

It earned him a moment of intense scrutiny, then Theodora shrugged delicately. "Very well. But you'd better invite me to Monaco next year, if anything goes on there I want to have my share of the fun."

"You'll fit right in," he promised. Theodora, along with the other girls. Maybe he'd better talk to William and Carl and secure refuge for himself in London for that weekend - Monaco clearly wasn't going to be a safe space.

At least Theodora didn't look as though she was going to pursue this line of thought any further today. The happy couple really needed to learn not to discuss their bedroom secrets in a hall full of wedding guests. Of course nobody had any illusions about what they were going to do once the party was over, but there was suspecting and then there was hearing it in detail from the parties involved.

"So, you and Guillaume as lunchtime friends?" he asked, brusquely changing the subject. "What does your mother say to that?"

Theodora drained the rest of her champagne. "Not much, actually. She just keeps sighing in that faintly happy way. It's almost a shame I'll lose that convenient excuse now, it's really been practical."

He took the glass from her and exchanged it for a fresh one from a hovering waiter. It seemed the staff had figured out that they had a good chance of emptying their trays if they hung around in this corner, though Andrea also spotted a similar concentration around Harry.

"Practical for both of you, I imagine," he said. "Is that why Grand Duke Henri was pitching him to you?"

She shrugged. "Probably. I'll have to tell Guillaume, he needs to be aware his parents are looking for spouses again. Otherwise they'll get the wedding invitation and bring him a blind date."

"Why is he making such a secret of it, anyway?" Andrea asked as he watched William lead Victoria onto the dance floor, and Carl follow him with Princess Alexandra.

Theodora grinned. "You'd be, too, if you were planning to abscond with an Imperial and Royal Highness."

"An Imperial... oh dear lord, don't tell me he found himself a Habsburg." Andrea didn't pay much heed to prejudice and stereotypes when it came to the nobility - you couldn't grow up knowing them privately and still give it a lot of thought - but he was perfectly willing to make an exception for that particular house. There might be a few normal members hiding somewhere in the cadet branches, but if there were then Andrea had yet to see them. Habsburgs, as far as he was concerned, were nuts.

"He did, and a nice one at that. But that's all I'm going to tell you, they'd rather keep it quiet for now. It's going to be tricky enough once they announce their plans."

William and Carl could probably tell them a thing or two about it, Andrea thought. They'd been the ones to step onto that particular battlefield first, and come out alive and victorious at the other side. Guillaume had better be aware that he owed them for this.

Andrea was about to try and pry a few more details out of Theodora after all when someone tugged at his sleeve. He turned around and found himself nose to nose - or rather, nose to tiara top, those Bernadottes were awfully small - with Madeleine, who was smiling up at him. The sight alone made him consider escape routes.

"Andrea? And Theodora, how wonderful to see you here."

Theodora gave a cheerful little wave. "Madeleine, good to see you too."

"Do you mind if I borrow Andrea for a dance?"

"Of course not, go ahead."

Apparently he wasn't going to get a vote in this, so Andrea inwardly resigned himself to his fate, passed his juice to Theodora - who frowned at it, shrugged, and tipped it into her champagne - and offered his hand to Madeleine.

"I saw you with Carl and Wills earlier," she said, putting her left hand on his shoulder as they stepped into the first beats of the dance. "You're not up to anything, are you?"

Andrea frowned. "What would that be?" he asked, glancing downwards to see how much space he had to manoeuvre around her gown. Ballroom dances were easy when you did them with a partner wearing a simple dress, but once you had to deal with these elaborate designs with petticoats and trains and whatnot, you weren't dancing just with another person, but the dress as well. And women got so absurdly irritated when you stepped on their hems.

Madeleine cocked her head and deftly steered him into a quieter spot. "I don't know. Maybe you're having a threesome. You certainly looked cosy."

He sighed deeply at that, then sighed again when the music changed to a waltz and he had to shift into the more intricate steps. "Madeleine..."

"You aren't, then?"

"Of course not. Why would I?"

Madeleine blinked at him innocently, then laughed. "Oh, I am not being serious. If I thought you had any designs on either of them... or both, for that matter, I'd just call Tatiana and let her deal with you."

Up until now he'd regretted it that Tatiana hadn't been able to accompany him. Now, knowing that there were at least three fearsome women in the room (and that wasn't counting people like Queen Elizabeth, who was scary even when she just sat there and nibbled at a cookie) he was rather glad that his girlfriend wasn't here to team up with them. It occurred to him that all these laws about male primogeniture had probably been put into place because that was the only way men stood even half a chance against the formidable force that was the female half of the nobility.

"Alex, well done," Madeleine murmured approvingly, and when Andrea turned his head to see what was going on, he spotted Harry's wife straightening out Carl's bow tie that had sat slightly askew, then giving his shoulder a friendly pat. "I'll glue that thing to his shirt collar one of these days. You guys don't have to deal with anything more complicated than ties, and even that seems too much sometimes."

Andrea wisely refrained from commenting. With Madeleine, it was simply easier.

"Have I mentioned..." she said, moving with him as he led her into a few turns to keep the dance interesting.

"That you'll inflict terrible, terrible pain on me if I even think of doing anything with your brother?" He grinned at her. "Yes, you have, and I'm waiting for the day when you'll believe me that I don't. Carl's cute, but since he's happily married as of six hours ago, he's off limits unless William agrees to it. And I'm hardly going to ask him permission to sleep with his husband. That would truly be bad form."

Madeleine blinked at him, and he chalked up a small victory for himself. Rendering her speechless had never been easy, even if it was just for a moment.

"Carl should be glad you're watching out for him," he said, gently patting her side with his right hand. "But you really can stop worrying. He's my friend, I only want the best for him, and obviously that's William."

A touch of surprise still in her eyes, she smiled up at him. "In that case I'll enlist you if anything ever comes up."

"I fully expect you to do that." Did Carl - and William, by extension - have any idea of this sort of backup? Andrea didn't think they did, but perhaps that was for the best. Madeleine was a fierce ally to have when it came to watching your back, but she could be more than a little scary. During Charlotte's last relationship crisis he'd seen her in action, and he didn't think the guy had recovered yet from the shock of having an irate Princess of Sweden descend on him in defence of her friend.

They shared the rest of the dance, then moved to the side of the floor when the music changed to something that would have required a slowfox, a dance Andrea absolutely couldn't stand. Mercifully, Madeleine didn't insist.

"Just see if you can spot me someone somewhere," she said, looking around in search of victims. "Oh, there's Amedeo, he'll do. I want to chat with him anyway."

Andrea spared a thought to wish Prince Amedeo good luck in the coming minutes, then escorted Madeleine towards her intended target.

"Did you know he's finally in a relationship?" she asked as they approached, leaning on his arm confidentially.

"I hadn't heard of it," Andrea answered politely. Amedeo was a Habsburg, and Andrea stayed away from them on principle. Besides, from the few rumours he'd heard about this particular prince, there seemed to be some doubt whether there was ever going to be a princess. Another participant in the new fashion Carl and William were setting today, perhaps? But in the end, Andrea didn't care all that much what His Imperial and Royal Highness got up to in the bedroom and who with, because anyone who dated one of them...

A sneaking suspicion crossed his mind.

"Who is he with?" he asked, aiming for casual.

Madeleine gave a pretty shrug. "That's why I want to dance with him," she said. "He seems to be quite secretive about it, but there are even some rumours about him getting married next year."

Oh Lord.

Well, at least Guillaume - assuming Andrea wasn't completely mistaken, but really, what were the odds - had found someone of appropriate rank. Andrea wasn't sure whether to wish him good luck or tell him to run. It took a special kind of courage to get involved with one of _those_ highnesses, but perhaps the healthy dose of Belgian blood had mitigated the Austrian eccentricity a little. This was going to be really, really interesting to watch.

Madeleine soon had her new target firmly snared and out on the dance floor again, and Andrea stayed at the side line to watch. The older guests were starting to drop out now that the dinner was over and all social niceties had been observed; soon Queen Elizabeth left as well, the general sign for anyone who didn't intend to stay for the party that their presence was no longer mandatory.

Wandering around, Andrea renewed a few old acquaintances, got to meet a few newcomers to the royal circles - when had all these people had the time to get married, he wondered - and reconfirmed that yes, Habsburgs were indeed insane, and that as such an old and distinguished house, they had their very own brand of crazy. He was just about to see whether he couldn't find Theodora again to share another drink with when Carl got dropped off near him at the side of the dance floor by Victoria, looking a bit worse for wear by now.

Deciding to be kind, Andrea collected a glass of juice for him and offered it without comment. Carl gave him a grateful look and took a deep swig, then ran a hand through his hair that only served to tousle it even more.

"I'm starting to see why everyone's always so exhausted at their weddings." He took another sip, then drained the rest of the glass. "By now I really must have danced with everyone at least once."

Andrea smirked. "I can't remember having had the honour," he said, his grin widening as Carl's expression hovered somewhere between confused and wary. "Don't worry, I'm not going to take you for a spin, even though I'm sure you and I would be perfectly compatible... for some dances at least."

Carl raised an eyebrow at that bit of innuendo, but looked faintly amused. "Do I need to fetch my husband to defend my honour? Or my sister?"

"Now that's a cruel threat, and just when I was going to give you another wedding gift." Andrea sadly shook his head. "Surely you wouldn't really send Madeleine after me."

"With the right provocation I just might." Carl got rid of the empty glass and once more attempted to get his hair into some semblance of control. "At least it's slowing down a bit now, it won't go on forever anymore."

"Looking forward to all your post-wedding sex already, are you?" Andrea teased cheerfully. "You know, you really should take a bit more care about getting overheard. Theodora's probably going to want to talk to you later."

Groaning, Carl buried his face in his hands for a moment. "Wills gets to deal with her," he said firmly when he surfaced again. "She's his cousin, so he can go and take that bit of embarrassment."

"Your cousin too, though, isn't she?"

Carl thought for a moment. "Yes, but she's more closely related to him. I think. Anyway, she's on his part of the guest list, so she's his responsibility. Especially when it comes to comments about our sex life."

"Sound reasoning," Andrea agreed. "So, do you want to know about your present?"

"If it cheers you up this much? Sure." Carl snatched a mini quiche from a passing waiter and took a bite, gesturing for him to go on.

"You'll like this," Andrea promised. "Turns out that you could have invited Guillaume after all, he's planning his own wedding for next year."

Carl almost choked on a sharply inhaled crumb, making Andrea decide to be a bit more careful. Almost getting him to suffocate twice on one day might be a little much. "His own... you mean he's got a lover?"

"Well, I'm led to believe that you need one of those for a wedding." Andrea watched him for any more signs of impeding death and went ahead when none were forthcoming. "Next May, but it's a big secret so don't tell anyone."

"If it's a secret, why are you telling me?"

"Because it's your wedding day, you deserve to know. And because Madeleine and Theodora both told me, so I have plenty of people to blame if it comes out."

A slow smile was spreading on Carl's face. "That's perfect, it really is. Not that I won't come along when Wills visits Luxembourg later this year, of course. But it's... relaxing."

They shared a grin at that, and when once more a waiter came past, they collected another round of champagne for a wordless congratulatory toast.

"Why didn't you bring Tatiana, anyway?" Carl asked him. "I thought for sure she'd come along."

"I thought you didn't want to discuss your sex life?" Andrea teased. "Thanks for the positive feedback, by the way, she was really proud of me."

Carl groaned quietly. "That woman... you are a brave man to put up with her, you really are. But seriously, why isn't she here?"

Andrea shrugged. "We're not married," he said. Yet, as far as he was concerned, though they hadn't talked about it so far. "It didn't seem proper."

"Since when do you care about propriety?" Carl asked. "I promise you, nobody here would have cared, not when they've got Wills and me to gossip about. Just bring her along for the next events that come up, you know we'll have your back if anyone objects. It's not like it's a secret that you're in a relationship with her."

He had a point there, Andrea knew; his relationship with Tatiana had outlasted a few royal marriages by now. But as long as they hadn't tied the knot, he hadn't considered it an option to present her in formal circumstances. It was one of the concessions he made to delicate royal sensibilities - the Grimaldis had a hard enough standing at times, he didn't intend to complicate matters unnecessarily by breaking that unspoken rule about only fiancées or wives being acceptable companions to official events.

Apparently he might have to reconsider that, at least when royals of his generation were the hosts.

"Think about it," Carl suggested. "If it makes you feel better, we'll invite you for an official visit so you can have a practice run. A chance for heirs to bond, or something like that." He winked, then glanced across the room towards his husband. "I should go back to Wills before any of those aunts manage to wriggle our holiday destination out of him. There's some sort of conspiracy going on there, and I'm not sure I want to find out what they're up to."

Andrea turned a little to cast a surreptitious look at William, surrounded by a group of middle-aged Windsor women. "He seems to be holding up so far," he said. "But on that note, if your honeymoon doesn't work out for some reason, let me know and I'll talk to Charlotte about lending you her island for the duration. She's spent last year paparazzi-proofing it."

Carl looked positively wistful at the idea. "I think we've got it sorted, but thank you. Maybe I'll take you up on that one day. I don't imagine we'll be able to take a step outside without attention for the next few months."

Andrea patted his shoulder in an attempt to console him. "It's worth the effort, though, isn't it?"

A glance at William across the hall was enough to make Carl's expression light up. "It's more than worth it," he said, a tone of absolute conviction in his voice.

One more pat, then Andrea gave him a gentle shove. "Then go on, rescue him."

He looked on as Carl make his way over to William, politely avoiding dancers and well-meant conversations and getting a kiss from his husband in reward that made the aunts retreat a little and then abandon them to each other's company entirely.

Those two, he thought as he watched them stand together, William's hand once more against the small of Carl's back while they had a moment's rest, were going to last.


End file.
